THINK BEHEMOTH

Santi Frani

leaving here on monday.
again, thank you to Lynn Wood
at Bird Man Coffee and Books
for everything you've done for me.
thanks to everyone else in town that
made me feel so welcome.

Episcopal Church Yard-St. Francisville

double tree- St. Francisville

St. Francisville Folks

these delightful people are Tom and Denise Scarborough.
i had fun time talkin' to them.

haven

holly cow! what a day. hard ride!

staying for work/trade at this beautiful cabin in St. Francisville.
met some really sweet people here. the food is great,
it's kind of like Austin, there is a lot of creativity here.
i'm taking the day off riding tomorrow, i need to rest a bit
and this is the perfect place to do it.
have an impromptu gig at this coffee shop called Bird Man.
sold a sketch of some bluesplayers that played Bird Man tonight.
hung out with an inn keeper from around the corner.
all of these people are amazing!
i'm going to have real coffee tomorrow!

crossed the Atchafalaya River today, then i crossed the Mississippi-
that was a small part of the Mississippi but still a huge bridge-
i was amazed at the scale of this thing and the colour choice.

yellow.

it's really a handsome bridge.

St. Francisville is full of giant trees and green coated hills, old Plantation Homes a magnificent
Episcopal Church and Cemetery. this is one of the most picturesque towns i've seen.
photos are fourth coming.....

crossing the Mississippi

to St. Francisville & accorss the Atchafalaya

to Simmesport

race with the weather today-
mission: do fifty miles with out getting rained on.
objective: reach Simmesport
out come: camp

mission conclusion:

managed to only ride in light rain today. about twenty
miles into it some clouds that i had been watching
as they headed north while i was headed north east,
all of the sudden were all around me. how did that happen?

since it was cool out i was able to push even harder.
but mainly i just lucked out, those clouds, as threatening as they were, never dumped. so, i made it to the shelter of another convenience store/restaurant in time to only escape a drizzle. i waited for about a half an hour in case the down pour was coming... then just rode out into the rain. it died out in a half an hour or so.

this is something i forgot to mention earlier.
the smells out here. it started back in Texas leading up to the Sam Houston National Forest. out there it just smells of Pine. it permeates the air. once you get further into east Texas you get to the longing operations, so then the smell of growing Pine is mixed with fresh cut Pine. it's hard to describe, it's kind of a tangy yet thick woody smell, just breathing in you feel like you're taking in the nourishment of the life the Pine gave up. you're eating tree!

in Louisiana, again it's hard to describe, especially because a lot of people were moving the grass today, so you could definitely smell that, but there was this other scent coming from woods and i couldn't tell you what it was but it distinct from Texas.

and so yeah, i didn't know that Louisiana had Palm Trees, (so does Sam Houston National Forrest) they grown everywhere....and there are these amazing Live Oaks, the Live Oak picture i posted here is not one that i shot because i was trying to beat the rain but i saw some that were very similar, and they were a beautiful sight to behold-(also, you never know when someone's dog is going decide to run next to you for 20 seconds and bark alot, so sometimes it's hard to stop and take a picture-but that's pretty fun it self, i'll usually taunt the dog because it doesn't have the stamina to keep up for very long) there's big ass Maples here too, every tree is way bigger than the ones in Texas. i don't need to mention the Bald Cypress....

the most common crops i've seen growing are soybean, corn, cotton, rice and sorghum, although they called sorghum something else or i just wasn't understanding the accent. but i think the crops might have something to do with the smell.

i met these really funny ladies that owned this grocery store in a Village called Grand Cain-(i like how they call these little towns villages), they offered to let me camp there but it was about twenty miles away from where i wanted to end up today, i forgot their names and yes i should have got pictures of them, they were really cool and had dire warnings against staying in Simmesport. i met several people along the way that were from Simmesport, none had great things to say of it. there was another awesome grocery store in Dupont, with a really nice guy who owned it with his wife (i think) , he told me i was welcome to come in side and eat, even though i was eating my own food. he seemed surprised that i didn't just know that that was acceptable- (city life...) this place actually had fresh fruit and vegies, not much mind you but they at least had stuff. alot of these places are gas station/cafe and grocery store and have boxed food and kitchens that make fried shit. fried everything, everything is fried. Fried. Fried. Fried.

i camped at a bayou last nite, at a camp ground that had wi-fi- there was some super facebook activity going on last night. i talked to a million people back in Austin, all in interweaving conversations and picked up a logo gig- hopefully i can find the time to do it while i'm on the road.

so tonight my brother talked me out of camping at this park by the bayou. i kind of forgot that i already did so the night before and did not get my leg bit off by a gator. so after i wasted money on this smelly hotel room (still smells better than my tent...) i talked to a new friend i have back in Mamou and she said gators are pretty scared of people and certainly won't come near fire and don't come near tents either and go for small animals and babies (if left unattended)- she said you could see their red eyes on the water's edge at night. either way it's cool that my bro was worried about me-

i still haven't seen a gator either.

and oh yeah, bayou water is Brown. Brown water.

i met one of the local police men, he was a hoot! a real sweet guy and he said they'd down to the park in a minute if i had any trouble, so yeah i coulda stayed in the park tonight for free- no worries, imabouta be up in the Natchez Trace and that's gona be primarily in the bush- plenty of time to get dirty in the woods.

tomorrow: St. Francisville.

i expected this trip to not be what i expected, so it's exactly what i expected.

poboy

upon entering Louisiana, a random stranger at a diner bought my lunch for me,
a military police officer invited me to camp in his yard, then made me spaghetti and the next day gave me packages of powdered gator aid, two bananas and bought my breakfast,

i get to Mamou and the Father of St. Anne's Catholic Church, speaking through a secretary, tells me that it's a liability to have me camp on their grounds, then suggests i go to the chamber of commerce and ask them if they know anywhere i can camp in town. by the way, it's pouring rain at this point in time.

so i go to the chamber of commerce and the people at the chamber of commerce jump on the phones and come back to me every few minutes to tell me they are still working on it. after a lil bit they have a place right down the street for me, the old boyscout hut and it still has a bathroom that is operational.

i set up camp, by the time i put up the tent the rain stopped, i play some banjo and start working on my East Texas Bottom Land Witch song.

a little while later as i'm leavin' to go grab a drink, i meet these folks that are comin' out of the old boyscout hut (so i'm in the old boyscout hut, i'm just camping at the sight and there some outdoor bathrooms there too as well a cover patio) and we start talkin'- not two minutes later she's on the phone with a friend of hers who plays in a Canjun band, then she puts me on the phone with him. a half an hour later he's comin' to meet me and we go grab a couple a beers.

turns out he plays Washboard and Bass a few bands, one of them his father's band. he's a cool dude, he has the right philosophy about playing music, understands about holdin' back until it's time to let it rip. cares a lot about just playin' music just to be playin' it. so, dude invites me to crash at his place and do laudry which is cool because a lot of my clothes and my sleeping bag are wet- (sleeping bag bag had a hole in it) dude feeds me too!

so many people have been really generous on this trip, overall the people here are really warm and they smile a lot
there's also alot of history here and some big ole trees.

pictures from Kirbyville

this place was mentioned in an older post....

Louisiana!

two days ago i crossed
the Sabine River.













-that puts me in Louisiana.















this is some river
that they apparently
are not willing to
share the name of on
the map or with signage-
it is very brown,
i'll call it Brown River
Washington.

BELGRADE, TEXAS.

i'm not headed here, i just saw it on the map,

it's not far by car from here, but i digress,

towns that fail are interesting and sad to me.

Belgrade is on Farm Road 1416 in east central Newton County, about one mile west of the Sabine River and sixty miles northeast of Beaumont. Indians who called the place Biloxi, either in memory of a visit to the Mississippi town of that name or in reference to their group name, once occupied the surrounding area, which lay at the Sabine River crossing of the old Coushatta Trace. Belgrade was founded by William McFarland in 1837. It was the first organized town in what was to become Newton County and was named after a more famous riverport, the capital of Serbia. Early settlers had high hopes for their new community; McFarland's son Thomas called the site "the most beautiful I had ever seen for a town." Numerous town lots sold at $100 each. During the 1840s and 1850s Belgrade became a center for agriculture and trade and a busy riverport served by several steamboats. The presence of a large raft two miles above the town undoubtedly aided early growth by concentrating river traffic at Belgrade. The town had a post office by 1840; its name was changed to Biloxi in 1853 and back to Belgrade in 1860. Belgrade made an unsuccessful bid to become the county seat during the mid-1850s. The town, although reportedly the site of one store and a sawmill in the 1880s, never realized the hopes of its founders. The expansion of railroads into East Texas in the early 1900s hurt the river trade. Belgrade also never became a major center for the lumber industry, which sparked growth in much of Newton County during the early twentieth century. The Belgrade post office was closed from 1866 to 1879 and again from 1906 to 1910; it was permanently removed in 1936. The original townsite is now abandoned and the buildings dismantled. A few persons still live in nearby communities, now called Upper and Lower Belgrade.

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

Frederick Charles Chabot, ed., McFarland Journal (Yanaguana Society Publications 8, San Antonio, 1942). Madeleine Martin, "Ghost Towns of the Lower Sabine River," Texas Gulf Historical and Biographical Record 2 (1966). Newton County Historical Commission, Glimpses of Newton County History (Burnet, Texas: Nortex, 1982). Miriam Partlow, Liberty, Liberty County, and the Atascosito District (Austin: Pemberton, 1974). Texas Surveyors Association Historical Committee, Three Dollars Per Mile: Accounts of Early Surveying in Texas (Burnet, Texas: Eakin Press, 1981).

Robert Wooster

40 miles done did to Kirbyville today.

yesterday i was really worried about finding safe places to sleep,
not recently having much luck in the way of people offering
hospitality, so i finally decided to hit up the churches in the
areas that i am coming to, and/or spend alittle more time trying
to find camping areas around these towns, because i come to find
that there are often more camping options than most people are
aware of, and even at RV parks you could possibly pitch a tent for
ten bucks or less. that sure beats a hotel for 45 and up! (as a side
note, camping at a camp ground or RV park introduces the possibility
of playing music for people, which brings to mind the possibility
earning some money.)

So Kirbyville is a small fading town in far east Texas (no camping).
there's an old building on Main st. that is nothing more than a broken
shell of brick and mortar with no roof left and there are trees growing
inside of it. one particular tree is about twenty or thirty feet tall, seems
to me that that tree has been growing there for a little while.

i asked the Pasteur (Brad) at the Methodist Church where i was
going to camp at if there were any oldtimers that met up somewhere
to play music. and he said (to paraphrase) that people in this town
were very private and that they didn't get together and do things
together too much unless it was an organized event like the Magnolia
Festival or Church. he even pointed out how some folks that lived
right there in town had no trespassing signs in the yards (like they
do in out in the country). i want to say he even referred to it as a
dying town, or something like that. kinda funny, on the Baptist
Church sign i saw, "Bad company corrupts good character"
-corithians 15:33 to which i wanted to reply,
"what if good character corrupts bad company?"

so later on i was at the local subway chain eating carbohydrate rich
foods full of preservatives and other unknown to me chemicals and
a local fella came in and after he sat down, asked me where i was
headin'. after a few words passed between us he told me he worked
at the local Housing Authority and if i wanted to shower i could come
down there and use the facilities. i thanked him and said i was
wondering where i was going to use the bath room tonight
(meaning poop) because i had arranged to camp at the
Methodist Church over on Main st. he said, "that's where i go.".
-small town.

so once i made it over to the Housing Authority building he told me
that he grew up around north San Antonio and that he used to run
competitively until he crushed his ankle.he has since bought a bike
to stay active but confesses to not riding it much, but any time he
sees a cross country cyclist he always offers them a place to shower
and crash at the Housing Authority. he brought me a cot too.

so this is a nice turn of events, because as stated earlier, the
hospitality in southeast Texas has been a bit spotty, however
in other cases, it's been Great!
this is a weird part of the state too, i think that
when most people from other states think of Texas, this is
what they think of, REDNECKS and horses. there are alot
of rednecks here, and almost as many churches and dirt
roads, but there are also a good deal of nice folks here too.
(i think the other extreme people think of is the TV show
Dallas- god i hope they never remake that...)

ok, so south east Texas, what else comes to mind??? ... Jasper...
yes, and i'm in Jasper County, the town of Jasper is twenty miles
north of where i'm at now. i just talked to my host (Wes) about
that. he wanted to impress upon me that that was an isolated
incident, he says the people here as a whole are not like that.
Wes pointed out that those dudes that dragged that man
behind a truck to his death had learned to become white
supremacist in the Texas Prison System. that last statement
there kind of packs a wallop in it self.

i bring this up because for me it's been kind of scary to go thru
some of these places because they are so remote and some of
these people seem rather put off by strangers, but again
only some of them, case in point, where am i now?
in the Housing Authority Office & Community Center to
spend the night on a cot with the interweb.... and a latin
dance group in the neighboring room from 6 to 7. i'd also
like to point out that i've seen a lot of interracial activities
among the kiddos and adults, now that's not to say everything
is perfect and no racial hatred exists anymore,
but the Klan doesn't rule here.

if anyone is interested here's an interesting article about
the dragging death and Jasper 10 years later.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2008-06-06-2161250099_x.htm

well, this took an unexpected turn, thanks for reading.

this time tomorrow, i'll be in Louisiana!

the big push

july 23, 2011-
back to front again:

making black beans and rice at the Shepherd Sanctuary with a jalapeno from a garden in Brenham-

roughly 40 miles covered today. currently staying at the above mentioned place, The Shepherd Sanctuary, this place truly is a sanctuary, it's a beautiful home out in the sticks, out side of Shepherd; Shepherd pop. 1544, one of the larger towns i passed through recently- (there are dead ants in my tent from the last place i camped, i suppose the ants from this place can eat them...)

The Shepherd Sanctuary looks like a place right out of south Austin, it has hodge-podge of discarded "this and thats" as it's decor: bottle trees, a woven grapevine archway, totem pole, palms, various Buddhist and Hellenistic statues, ethereal wind chimes. The cabins with their various odd colour combinations and mix-matched doors and window frames are all built by the owner, Peach. the cabins are connected by decking, including an out door shower and bathroom. it cost ten bucks to pitch a tent here and that includes access to the kitchen and what ever is in the cupboard and the showers too; there is also an indoor shower which has moon stones and tile!

- Peach accepted my proposition of trading music for lodging which is nice since after i payed ten bucks to camp in Sam Houston National Forest i then learned it is free to camp anywhere in a National Forrest-however my cd's don't seem to work in my computer...so i'm hoping they work somewhere... (oh yeah, i'm drinking watered down sunkist right now, the first soda i've drank in something like ten or fifteen years-)

-the ride from Sam Houston was pleasant, i passed up an opportunity to go see a "hangin' tree" in Coldspring, Texas. yes! an actual bonnafied hangin' tree. that's what it used to be, now it is apparently a peaceful picnic area. they told me it was a giant oak with branches that drooped to the ground.
i would have loved to have seen it but i just wanted to get to Shepherd... while in Coldspring i also spoke to some kids that were conducting (under christian parental supervision) a car wash in the parking lot of the super market, and they were astounded that a person could and would ride their bike across the country. they were real sweet kids, high-school age if you can believe it, but they were real sweet, i wish i coulda chilled longer there to talk to them some more.

i'm noticing how homogeneous these towns are. you hear a lot about that and i wish i could dispute it but i'm seeing it a lot in places that i hoped would be uniquely rural. perhaps it's just wishful thinking for my part. it was also kind of a bummer to hear that girl say, "i couldn't even get down the street." (on a bike) those kids seemed curious and intelligent and i hope they do some great with themselves someday.

no mater how homogenized these towns are, playing Brad Paisley in every supermarket, there is always at least one really cool person i meet, so i'm sure there are a couple more out there... ie, in New Waverley, i met this guy Carson, who did paint and body work but he also was an arborist which he liked doing because it kept him in touch with nature and had nothing to do with chemicals. he's a fella that gave up the city life because it's for the birds. he told me to watch out for the crackheads in west Shepherd he said they "glowed in the dark". he also told me that if i came through town again, that i could camp at his place.

yesterday i took a day off from riding and rode roughly eight miles from Richards, Texas to the aforementioned Sam Houston National forest where i camped with several large communities of ants, little bitty red ones, orange ones, black ones, medium sized red and blacks and huge black ones- it seems that the little bitty ones have Napoleon complex or are just rabid flesh eaters, they like to bite.

other than that it was a
peaceful day full of worry, contemplation, planning and yes songwriting. i wrote a song that is sort of just a crooked riff with improvised lyrics over it about a man i met back in Brenham. another one of those rare small town gems, a person who is open and outlandish and kind of crazy. but i'll get to him in a bit. ( i wish i would have taken his picture).

Thursday i stayed at The Check Point at Mexican Hill Ranch in Richards, Texas. this place is owned by another character, a retired army engineer and his German wife. she tends the animals, milks the cows feeds the chickens etc, he runs the inn. the place is kind his party habitat and get away place for his friends and loved ones, (although it seems his relatives can't seem to pull themselves away from there city lives in Houston long enough to come visit him- that seems to bother him a bit) but when none of his friends are around, he feels like the place sorta goes to waste so he decided to open it up as a lodging and camping place for bikers. he's really into Harleys too. the bikers never came, but the cyclists started showing up, so now he mainly caters to cyclists. it's pretty cheap too, and you get access to the kitchen, laundry and a friggin' swimmin' pool. the overall vibe of it more countryfied than the funkyness of Shepherd Sanctuary. Ernie is the guy's name, he likes to hang out and talk with his guests. he even has an annual bluegrass gathering! go figure.



Anderson was a sweet little country town between Navasota and Richards- that place had a real nice vibe- i spent about 15 minutes there....
Navasota i spent a half an hour, i really just wanted to get to Mexican Hill Ranch.

So Brenham was like a small town out of a Twilight Zone episode. it seemed that everyone there was completely Christian and pre-programed, kind of like "the stepford wives", the kids weren't programed to answer questions pertaining to street names or about what they did for fun. they did have wi-fi though.... i just missed what seemed to be a great connection with an Austrian woman who didn't receive my couch surfing request until the next day but i went to a local bar and drank two beers and smoked a cigar with this amazing and crazy dude named Rusty. i don't mean crazy in a negative way he was rad and generous enough to let me camp in his backyard. he's the type of guy you want to be on your side in a fight though, this dude is an outlaw, yet an outlaw who is taking care of his elderly mother.

it was karaoke night at this bar where i met Rusty, Rusty was insisting that i sing a song and i was insisting that i don't do karaoke, so he's like, "you play banjo right?" and i say,"yeah" he says, "go get your banjo a play a song!" so i did. you could here a pin drop in there while i was playing Sally Anne, (until i told them all about how hot Sally Anne was and how they all wanted to marry her too, even the ladies) -so that went well, and i went to Rusty's place to crash and he came home later after he got kicked out for almost fighting this cowboy dude who was jealous because she high fived Rusty. that's when i learned more about his story. he offered me food and drink and the next day he literally threw me some jalapenos out of his garden.

before i got to Brenham i passed through Burton, pop. 300. stopped at this joint called the Four Corners Barbecue. they gave me free food and lemon/strawberry-aid. i sat with those folks for about an hour and learned about Orangetta's past as a A&R rep for a Gospel Music label and how she organized various events to help energize the community. her and her hubbie Pearcy where real sweet people; but for the life of me i can't remember what brought them from Alabama to Bruton, but do i remember she spent some years driving a truck for a living and they used to deliver the mail to Burton and several surrounding cities.

Orangetta and Pearcy gave me vague directions to Brenham, but they checked out with what i got off the interweb which vaguely checked out with what i got form Jesus at Taqueria Chihuahua, Authentico Comida Mexicana in Giddings. that dude was really cool, he comped my breakfast just because he saw me on my bike. the food at that place was killer!

(i think people give vague/bad directions in their home town because they are so used to gettin' around in it and they take for granted what strangers are not going to already know.)

though it's fraught with questions and difficulty, this trip is great, on the way to Shepherd
i realized that since i'm covering forty miles a day, i can predict when i'm going to get some where so i can book shows- which is cool cause thus far the trip has not been extremely musical and i have yet to meet anyone who plays traditional music, weather it's bluegrass, or polka or Mexicana or whatever. music used to be everywhere.....

july 24, 2011-
i played a small little show for the folks at the Shepherd Sanctuary, and they really appreciated what i was doing. that was nice because in the recent past i have been a bit shaken about what i've been doing musically so it was great to have people i've never met before enjoy it that much.
they were impressed because i played banjo in a way that they had never heard before and then i come to find out some of these folks are related to Alan Munde! Alan Munde, by the way, is a Banjo King! i wish i would have shot photos of Peach and her friends they were really great folks.
this morning i was sent off with way too many pancake and sausage and egg in my belly, which was cool because i didn't have to eat a morsel for twenty miles.

-and today i rode through forty miles of trees way out in the middle of NOWHERE, now i'm in Koutnze, which seems like the middle of nowhere and tomorrow i'm going to camp at the United Methodist Church in the middle of Kirbyville, TX and the next day i'll be in Louisiana!


thanks for readin'
Adam