Bicycling Florida to Texas
Through
Alabama, Mississippi,
Arkansas & Oklahoma

2008 - May - June

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This morning we woke up and want to the motel office for breakfast. All they had was small cinnamon rolls, so we each ate one and got on the bicycle and headed out of town. We looked for a café that was open but did not find one, so we headed south. Unfortunately the road was not flat. We had rollers and the top of every roller was just a little higher than the last roller. On most of these hills we were able to go down one hill fast enough to reach the top of the steep portion of the next hill. Then we would slowly continue up the hill until we would finally reach the top. We continue this most of the way to Hugo where we finally had a good oatmeal breakfast.

We tried to visit a Railroad Museum in Hugo, but it was closed and we did not feel like waiting 45 minutes for it to open so we headed towards Paris Texas. The road was flatter but the pavement was chip seal and we rode on the very wide shoulder of Highway 271. The real problem was the head winds. We had study headwinds of around 10 miles per hour and gusts up to 19. We stopped and took pictures of both the Red River and the Welcome to Texas sign.

The next 15 miles were very hard with the winds. We followed a 4-lane highway and even though we had wide shoulders, there was the constant noise of all the traffic. When we arrived on the north end of town we called our motel and assured ourselves of a room for the night. Then we headed for the motel and found our motel next to major highway construction. We walked the bicycle through the construction site to finally reach the motel. We walked down the street to an ice cream place for lunch and then returned to the motel for swim.

There is no laundry so we washed out our clothes in the sink and then put them on the bicycle to dry. When everything was dry we walked down the road and had a good supper. We have decided to stay here tomorrow before we head out again.