Killeen, Texas
Yesterday I finished the first half of my adventure: meeting up with my little brother who recently returned from his deployment in Afghanistan. It was an excellent 5 hour drive from Houston only getting turned around once or twice. The worst part of the leg was after stopping for gas another long distance biker told me to avoid route 35 at all costs as four men had just been killed on motorcycles due to its constant flow of heavy traffic and truckers. Assuming I would be riding route 190 all the way to Killeen Texas I told him not to worry, details details details... Not twenty minutes later after fueling up I saw the sign: Fort Hood/ Killeen this way on of course route 35!
Trying to complete the dangerous part as quickly as possible twenty minutes later I noticed that I was no longer seeing signs for Fort Hood or Killeen. Pulling over I found out with a quick smack to the forehead that I had gone the wrong way. You for the last week I had been following nothing but South or West routes, so this days drive north threw me through a loop. Now instead of getting through the dangerous traffic as quickly as possible, I had doubled the amount of time I'd spend on 35 instead. Oh well...
The rest of the trip passed without any problems/accidents/burning scenes of smashed wreckage. The scenery was incredible. The wide open expanse of Texas is exactly what they appear to be from the movies. Rustic burned out sleepy houses scattered freely between large areas of arid nothingness. It was a great contrast to the lush swamplands of Louisianna and I couldn't believe I was only a couple hundred miles away from it. I also couldn't help feeling like a little bit of lone cowboy perched atop my beast, riding through the picture perfect backdrop that could have been out of any western movie.
Holding back tears of joy I pulled into the parking lot (2 hours after I had expected to be there [details details...]) happily revving my overheated tired engine, jumping off quickly, and embracing my brother. It was great to finally see him again and if this time was anything like the last time we hung out in the casino near Syracuse, New York we'd again be in for a great time.
Now normally I don't struggle with any feelings of doubt about my manliness. I feel somewhat confident in knowing that I am who I am. Killeen Texas is one of the few places that have challenged that in almost every way imaginable. Everywhere I turn there's military men/real cowboys with chiseled muscles and less the 5% body fat. To make matters worse, because my brother has no license or car, to see the sights or to get food Ian has to ride on the back of my bike. Now driving through the machismo soaked atmosphere with another man on the back of my bike (a bike that's no doubt almost twice as old as some of these guys and definitly one of the oldest vehicles on the roads down here) definitely has put a little bit of a chink in the armor, but no choice now but to soldier on (yeah I went there!).
On top of that, I think I'm safe in saying I've reached the first destination that I really don't like. For anyone without a military person in the family I'll give you a brief run down. Soldiers get paid a decent amount of money, but unlike civilians most have no way to spend it. So when many return from deployment to come stay in cities close to their base like Killeen its an all out spend-as-much-as-you-can-fest, but who can blame them? On the receiving end of that buisness arrangment, I feel as if Killeen is just there to make a quick buck. There's dealerships, miles of strip mall after strip mall, and any store selling any product a person with enough cash could ever want.
One of the stores we went into today was a motorcycle dealership selling $15,000+ motorcycles, and no it wasn't a Harley dealership. I truly felt as if I could see the faces of the employees light up as they looked over and saw two buzzed haircuts walking through the door no idea the disappointment they were in store for. The first saleswoman approached us in less than 30 seconds offering to help us out or answer any of questions. Unfortunatly after less then 30 seconds more she had already gleened that I was not in the Army (therefore not eligible for their deep discount), and that we were just "looking." Not exagerating at all, she just literally backed away with an awkward smile on her face. In the short amount of time we were there we were approached by at least 10 other sales reps all thinking they could smell blood in the water. Little did they know that what they were smelling was simply me, 5 days after having access to laundry in South Carolina (thanks Danita!). So unnaccostemed they were to someone not just pointing to one and passing over the cash the whole experience was... ackward. Oh well.
Whats certain is that I won't let the feel of the city get me down. I was born in Florida; nations capital of the strip mall. Me and my brother are still going to have a great time (pool hall last night with cowboys [including one self proclaimed black cowboy: "betcha didn't know their were black cowboys here!" he told us] and who knows where tonight). Until then R and R for both me and my brother, getting to meet his new girlfriend, and some delicious Mexican beer that I guess I'm the only one not to have tried before. Cheers!
No comments:
Post a Comment
So what did you think?