Cross Country Ramble 42: Awards

Ken and a Palo Verde in Arizona.

Ken's award for Best Roadside Tree Species goes to the Palo Verde we enjoyed throughout most of Arizona. These strange no-leaf trees were abloom with small bright yellow flowers all up and down their green-barked branches. Seeing them never failed to perk me up.

The Good Intentions Gone Awry award goes to Phoenix, for creating wonderfully landscaped bike paths and then lining them with thorn-producing tire-puncturing desert plants and trees (see Ramble 12: Attitude).

The Worst Uphill award goes to the first half of the ride from Superior, AZ, to Globe, AZ. It was ride/walk/ride/walk. No (meaning not any) shoulder. Trucks both ways. Once, grinding up a long steep uphill bridge, Ken, exhausted, leaned over onto the bridge railing and just held on for a while, staring into the abyss and feeling the bridge shake as trucks pounded past. (see Ramble 13: Real Mountains )

The Best Downhill award goes to the second half of the ride from Superior to Globe. We hit speeds of 40 mph on a curvy road. It required an act of will to keep our hands off the brakes. Thrilling!

The "Duh" award goes to Ken & Carol, for taking off one day before sunrise to beat the desert heat, counting on our taillights to keep us safe, then discovering that without headlights we couldn't see the road in front of us.

The Worst Motel award goes to the gas station/convenience store/motel in tiny Duncan, NM. This run-down motel was not quite clean, and the swamp cooler air conditioner wasn't hooked up. When we tried to wash our clothes out in the sink we found its drainpipe was broken off at the sink base so the wash water ran out on the floor. We tried our wastebasket but it had a hole in it. We finally convinced the store clerk to trade her solid wastebasket for our holey one. As we lay exhausted on our sway-backed bed hoping for a breeze, a legion of Native American women returning from fighting a forest fire talked animatedly all the long hot night outside our open window. Yet we considered ourselves lucky. The other seven rooms of that motel were filled to overflowing with those firefighters, whose bus had broken down that day in this town. We would not have had a room at all, except that, for the first and only time on the western part of our trip, we had called ahead for a reservation.

The Best Meal award goes to the Meson de Mesilla, NM, for Chateaubriand for Two (see Ramble 17: Chateaubriand for Two). The runners up are the Dakota in Covington, LA, which served us the first really good meal since Mesilla, and the Artesia in Abita Springs, LA (see Ramble 35: Eventful Sunday).

The Worst Day award goes to May 28, 1996, the day we traveled from Sanderson, TX, to Comstock, TX. It was hot, over 100 degrees and it was 90 miles to the next place to stay. We thought we could make it because the map showed a 3000-foot drop. What the map didn't show was innumerable hills. We had started at sunrise, but as the sun began to go down, we had only made 62 miles. In desperation, we called a motel in the next town and persuaded the manager to close up and come get us his pickup. That was the day Ken's knees started to act up big time.

The Best Drivers award goes to Texas drivers who regularly moved way over into another lane and often waved "hello." The runner-up award goes to Louisiana drivers.

The Best Roads for Biking award goes to Texas, where most roads have six-foot wide paved shoulders.

The Best State award goes to Louisiana (see Ramble 32: Acadiana! and Ramble 37: Louisians and West Texas Culture).

The Most Ironic Church Sign award goes to an unnamed church in Louisiana for "The righteous shall have their reward."

The Worst State for Non-smokers award goes to Louisiana, which has smoking in every public place and lots of smokers.

The Worst City for Bikers award goes to Biloxi, MS, where many of the drivers created intentional near misses, even when there was plenty of room to pass. Avoid Biloxi even if it means going miles and miles out of your way. If Biloxi can't be avoided, take a cab (see Ramble 38: Reality Checks).

The Best Vegetable in a Restaurant award goes to the steamed vegetables at The Seafood Galley on Dauphin Island, AL. We think this restaurant would have deserved this award even if there had been another restaurant between California and Florida that served a vegetable.

The Did I Really Want to Hear This award goes to a friendly truck driver at a small restaurant in Florida. He warned us to be careful by telling us the story about the nice couple on the tandem bicycle he had seen one day who had waved to him as he went by. When he returned on his route he saw them both dead--hit and dragged by a truck.

The Roadside Animal Ken Would Most Like to Be award goes to the mockingbird. They seem not to have a care in the world as they sing lustily from the highest point around.

The Roadside Animal Ken Would Least Like to Be award goes to the armadillo. If the "Why did the chicken cross the road" joke were to be reapplied to armadillos, it would have to be reworded, "Why did the armadillo TRY to cross the road."

Carol's Best Cultivated Shrub goes to Azaleas, which were in bloom beginning in Louisiana and continued all the way to Florida. They were big--some as large as six feet high by eight feet wide. They were bright. They were fuchsia pink and red and lavender. They were wonderful.

Someone else's picture of a Live Oak with Spanish Moss.

Carol's Best Roadside Tree award goes to Live Oaks draped with Spanish Moss. We saw them from Louisiana to Florida. They're majestic. They're old. They're beautiful.

The Best Trip Idea (according to Carol) goes to Ken, for buying a laptop to take along so we could write this journal for you. Having you-all along has added greatly to the meaning of this journey for us.

Ken & Carol

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