My first walk of shame...

June 12, 2013

New Orleans

By the time I rolled into New Orleans from my supposed “shortest” day of travel I was pissed. Nothing in the past 9 hours had seemed to go my way, and it certainly hadn't seemed like an “easy” leg in any real sense of the term. Looking back the next day its tough to figure out where to begin. I suppose the leg took a quick turn for the worse approaching my second fill up of the day.

Yesterday I found myself on interstate 10; a bustling 75+ mph highway designed purely for speed and rapid transit. Like so many have noticed my bike is not in fact equipped with a windshield so at those speeds I have to really lean forward on the bike to avoid the neck snappin winds. I suppose it must be pretty goofy to see a man on a old touring style bike, crouched low on the tank treating it more like a crotch-rocket, but its more out of necessity then style. Anyway I hit the hundred mile mark on my odometer and new it was time to fill up ASAP. At the last stop I had measured my fuel economy at 40 miles per gallon, my usual rate. So when I hit the hundred mile mark this time I figured I had at least 20 miles left despite the unusually low needle on the fuel gauge.

Trying to read the road signs on the highway blurring by, I'm pretty sure it said exit 5 for camping and exit 6 for gas so I accelerated on to the next exit in hopes of getting there sooner. The only problem was exit 6 never came. I kept going, trying not to get nervous as my gauge continued to rapidly drop off but I couldn't find this mythical exit 6. Taking the bike further on one tank then I had ever gone before I finally saw the exit and could just start to see the station. That was exactly when the trouble started. All of a sudden I lost almost all throttle having to crank it back all the way just to keep up speed. I suppose looking back Saphira did all that she could; at first she dropped down to 30 desperatly struggling to keep moving forward, held it for as long as she could and then with the clutch in came to a graceful parking spot on the roaring highway right next to the sign saying only a quarter mile to the gas station. Where my last bike practically shutoff if you weren't quick enough to change to the reserve tank Saphira held it together for as long as she could but unfortunately this time it simply wasn't enough.

Hoping off and cursing my unfortunate circumstances in the searing mid morning sun, I figured at least I could see the gas station and made the unfortunate walk of shame. Thankfully, motorists and other bikers are pretty sympathetic to travelers in need and I didn't even have to walk the short before a real southern boy, with cowboy killer cigarettes blazing, and southern rock pounding in the beaten Buick stopped and took me to the gas station. From there I paid for the smallest tank I could find and bought some oil just to be safe and made the walk back. Overall it couldn't have taken more then 45 minutes from sputter to moving out, but with the unforgiving heat of the barren highway and the embarrassing knowledge that I had run my dutiful workhourse out of gas my mood was in an all time low.

Getting tired of the endless view of 6 lane road and 18 wheelers going 10 mph slower then the speed limit soon after I made the choice to take route 90 and follow the coast for the rest of the trip. In comes Biloxy, Mississippi. It's like the Atlantic City of the gulf complete with casinos, streets packed with busy impatient swerving drivers on their cell phones, and evil stoplights seemingly designed to stop you every quarter mile to show you what you could be eating, or where you could be shopping. To say the least in a hundred degree temperatures stop and go traffic with full riding gear on is a brutal brain baking nightmare. I found myself cursing cars that even hesitated at green lights and knew the I couldn't continue at that pace in that heat.

The best part of the day's trip came shortly when I got to fully enjoy the benefits of riding along the coast. Coming to the first beach I saw with other people swimming, I pulled off and took a satisfying dip effectively cooling my nerves and putting me in a better mood. Unfortunately though by the time I got my gear back on and had pulled out I was sweltering hot again and the pleasure of the swim had faded before I even left the parking lot but it was still a nice stop.

The other memorable part of the day was before Biloxy rolling into a gas station for lunch and parking next to a harley being worked on a precarious character. He was a tatooed, leather skinned, shriveled older man with a peculiarly high pitched voice dressed in camo: not normally someone I'd associate with. But noticing that he was working on the bike I couldn't hold back and had to ask what was up. He happily told me that his pride and joy had been parked in Pensacola only a day ago, but had been sadistically submerged in a flooded out area for two days. It turns out the rains and flooding had stopped less than 24 hours before I rolled through and despite me coming prepared with my rain pants already on and the numerous texts and calls from family I stayed safe and dry. The happy fellow showed me the sludge that he had drained from every last plug on the bike that he could remove, but while I could still see my reflection in the bright chrome of the machine the sludge looked like a potentially fatal mix of what appeared to be oil and cement like mud.

The man told me that he was trying to get the bike back to his hometown in Texas, and from the sounds of it he didn't have a proverbial pot to piss in. Insurance had towed the bike a hundred miles or so but where the bike lay now was the extent of the towing companies radius, and potentially the machines final resting place. He also told me he hadn't eaten in two days so I offered him some of my PB&J and we shot the shit about our favorite traveling stories while he ran around calmly trying to secure clean oil and gas. You'd never guess from his high spirits that the one thing in his life that he cared about the most would most likely never see its home much less the next mile marker, and his optimism was uplifting. I pulled out shortly after sorry I couldn't help more and hopping the bike eventually found its spark and the man his way home. Looking at his story now, its hard to see why I can get so miserable with a little heat; at least my wheels were still rolling in the right direction, and the soothing purr of my 850cc four cylinder was still alive.

A couple hours later I rolled into New Orleans, quickly located my hostel and walked into paradise. Being an avid fan of hostels I'm always trying to explain why they're so amazing to people whose only encounters with hostels so far had been Quentin Tarantino and Eli Roth's nightmare, so I guess at this point I'll give it another shot. After only just finding my bunk and stowing my gear in my climate controlled frosty dorm (no “residence hall here!”) I walked outside to an instant offer of pool volleyball. In my sweaty disgusting state nothing could have sounded better, and withing a short hour I had lost 3 out of the 4 games, but had met at least 15 other avid adventures from anywhere from Australia to Poland and given some wholly refreshing ice cold beer.

The fun of the volleyball game continued into the night with copious amounts of beer, drinks, and other things, and a great time was had by all. One new found friend was hell bent on seeing a local “dive” bar to get an accurate feel for the locals, and after walking into an amazing beer garden of massive flat screen TVs, vine covered fencing and miles of white Christmas lights decoratively hung, I had to explain to the Frenchman that this was not in fact the true definition of a “dive bar.” We later filled the Aussie's desire to see a local bar. After numerous games of pool including my first shot of the night trying to impress an attractive blonde and self-proclaimed deckhand/bad-ass from Washington in which I managed to not only sink the cue ball, but also the 8 ball right away, and then a drawn out game of darts, we finally made our way back to the hostel. The night out continued on late into the night, all drinks were eventually polished off, and we all eventually found our way back into our beds.

Two nights before I was thankful for clean sheets, cold AC, and a pool at a budget breaking price of $77 a night, but last night I realized I had all of that and some great company at a fraction of the price. After all two nights here at the incredible India House are only costing me a total of 36 dollars, and for the fun had already that can't be beat. Couch surfing has been a nice new experience so far, but for the endless amount of travelers I've met already, hostels are still number one in my book. Now I need to go and soak my leg in the pool due to an unfortunate dismount and union between muffler and exposed skin; yeah I did that yesterday too...