Chapter 8

The next morning it was a really bad breakfast burrito from the microwave oven of a convenience store. I left the convenience store with the Tomos Gassed up as well as my body.

I headed for Austin but it was too far to make in one day. Especially on the light in the ass Tomos. Even though the speeds were terrible, I had to admit that the lightweight bike was doing very well at holding together. I road the flat Texas roads all day, there were plenty of potholes but not a lot of engine strain. The land was beautiful for a while, but then the sameness of it got very boring.

When I pulled into Brenham after 5PM, I decided to stop. I could have made a few more miles but didn't want to risk it. If there was anything between Brenham an Austin it just wasn't in the gps app I used on my smart phone. I did not want to get caught in the middle of nowhere, when it got dark.

I was surprised by the number of campgrounds the waitress recommended to me. One of them even had a laundromat. It however had only RV spaces. I did find one with tent spaces which suited me better. I pulled my little trailer to it and settled in well before dark.

"Hi there," I love your bike. My son wanted to take a look will that be okay?" the woman asked.

"Absolutely, though there isn't much to see," I admitted.

"So where are you from?" the preteen boy asked.

"I'm from North Carolina," I replied.

"Is that far?" he asked.

"The way I have been traveling it's pretty much over a thousand miles," I suggested.

"Wow," the boy's mom said. "How long have you been on the road?"

"Well it's been almost ten days but it seems longer. I could have done the same distance easily in two days in a car." I admitted.

"I bet you have some great stories," the boy said.

"Actually it's been mostly about the people and the things I have seen. I saw ten shrimp boats leaving the dock at sunrise in Gulfport Ms. That was a pretty awesome sight. Then a day or two later I saw an old man on a rusty tractor plowing a field. He was so damn beautiful, I wanted to cry," I said. I could tell by looking that I had charmed not only the boy but his mother as well.

"My dad loved motorcycles," the boy said.

"Well, that isn't really a motorcycle. It more a bicycle for lazy people," I admitted. "One thing it has done though is make me lose weight. You really can't snack while you are riding." I laughed as I said it. The woman was really impressed.

"My dad was a soldier, he was killed in Iraq," the boy said.

"I am so sorry, I am sure that he loved you guys very much," I said.

"He won a medal over there," he went on.

"I bet you are very proud of him. If you were a little older, I would let you ride the bike." I looked at the mom who shook her head telling me to stop encouraging him.

"That would be awesome," he said.

"Do you have children," the younger woman asked.

"I have a son and daughter. They are both in college now. They are probably home for the summer about now. I really do miss them. I send them an Email everyday." I was a little sad and also ready for the mother and son to leave, so I could answer my messages. "As a matter of fact, I should be doing that now."

"Well, we should go fix dinner. If you don't have plans you could stop by in an hour and have dinner with us. It won't be much, but there will be plenty to go around." the woman said.

"Please do," the boy added

"I'll see you in an hour. How will I find you?" I asked.

"I'll come get you Dixie, I know the way." he was all proud that he could find me again.

"Fair enough," I replied. I wrote the kids emails, then I checked messages. I found that I had a voice message from the detective.

"Just wanted to let you know I talked to the DA. They are not going to charge you with anything. He might want you to come back and testify against the others. I know you can't recognize any of them, but you could give the case a different feel. It wouldn't be just one drug gang shooting another drug gang, if you testify. Give it some thought. Call me about your pistol in a week or so." Then the message just ended.

I needed nowhere near the full hour to send messages. Once I had finished, I just sat with my back to one of the trees on my camp space. That's why I liked the primitive or tent spaces. They hadn't been scraped flat for a trailer or bus to pull through. I sat on the ground in my jeans with so much dirt ground into them that washing had very little effect. Somehow for the first time in my life, I just didn't care.

"So I never did ask your name," I said to the youngster who came to show me the way to dinner,

"Jed," he said. "My dad said I was named for a great mountain man, Jedediah Smith. My last name is Smith as well."

"Well Mister Jedediah Smith, will you be my dinner date for tonight?" I asked seriously.

"Of course, you are kind of an explorer." he said.

"Well maybe a little bit of an adventurer," I suggested.

The Smith trailer was a small one. It looked to have been custom made rather than out of a factory somewhere. "I really like this trailer," I said. If I ever do this again, I might get something like this and a big old dodge pickup." I suggested to Jed's mother.

"My husband built this. I guess he really converted it from a lineman trailer the army sold as surplus. He turned it into a camper for us. He really wanted Jed to learn about the outdoors," she said tearing up.

"He sounds like one hell of a man," I suggested.

"Oh he was," she agreed.

"Well, I got so excited to have him for a dinner date that I forgot to ask Jed your name." I admitted.