Three Rivers, TX to Kingsville, TX*

*Click on heading to view photos.
Ok, wow, today was awesome. 80 miles, made it to Kingsville. I kicked up my game; I now treat my riding like a sport, and I am an athlete. It may seem a bit strange; like obviously I was always engaging in a sport. But not really; that is not how I saw it until today. It really has to do with workrate and heartrate. Until today, I really mostly focused on kinda riding-as-transportation, and not really doing it competitively or aggressively. Biking to get there, and not really focusing on it as an athletic activity. That meant that my workrate was not very high and my heartrate did not get that high. But at some point during the day today, I fell into the posture of riding aggressively as sport. I think it happened as I was listening to the song, "Remember the Name" by Fort Minor. It had to do with working hard and distinguishing oneself. Just riding to get there was not distingishing myself. I needed to work hard, and pull ahead. That led to thinking about being an athlete, engaging in sport. I thought about other times in my life that I have been focused and competitive. I remembered in 7th or 8th grade when I organized a table tennis tournament with 16 classmates; I focused hard and won the tournament and took home the prize.
The wind was against me again, for the third day, for most of the day. When the wind is at my back, as it was from Austin to San Antonio, I feel like Super Man on speed (but seriously, don't do speed!); and when I am going against the wind, I still feel like Super Man! I just get this burst of energy and I start going like 17-18 or so miles an hour, and that is pretty good when you are loaded down with at least 60 lbs of stuff and going against the wind! Eventually, I have to take it easy and bring my workrate down a bit to rest. Then my energy builds again and I turn it up again. It helps when a good song pops on my playlist.
Let's jump to the best story of the day. It is the story of how I got lodging tonight. And these are always the greatest stories, I think, in my trips and perhaps most cycle tourists' trips. Here's how it went. Yesterday, I went on couchsurfing.com and found just one couchsurfer listed for Kingsville, TX. I requested to couchsurf with him, and he eventually replies, indicating that he now realized that his profile was out of date and that he had since moved to Corpus Christi. He said his couch in Corpus was game for surfing, but in Kingsville he could try to see if some of his friends might host. As I neared Kingsville, I asked him if he could see if he could just line up a place to shower, to get internet, and a place in the backyard to camp. He tried all his friends and it turned out they all had either moved or were out of town. He racked his brain for somewhere I might shower, and he remembered the boxing gym at which he used to train. He messaged me the location and suggested I try that, stating that the gym was open for another half hour, that the coach there is a super guy, and that their are Spartan accommodations including a shower and a bed. I found the gym, met the coach, and the pieces all fell into place wonderfully. As collateral, I gave the coach my passport, and in exchange I set me up with the shower, a towel, a bedroom, and the key to the gym so I could come and go as needed! And he suggested for internet the Burger King 3 blocks away! Super set city. To recap, the connection chain was as follows: CouchSurfing member John Casey formerly lived in Kingsville-->moved to Corpus Christi-->wanted to host, and if not, help in anyway he could-->racks his brain and comes up with the boxing gym and coach-->gym is still open for another half-hour after getting into town-->I find the gym-->coach Jaime Cantu is present-->meeting goes well-->facilities available-->a deal is made-->PJ is hooked up! I gotta give it up to CouchSurfing. It has really come into its own. The communities and the connections it creates are phenomenal. All these stories highlight a combination of trust, generosity and resourcefulness of humans that is truly inspiring. I will have to recount the stories of each of my previous hosts, all of which are equally interesting, if not as surprising. In the interest of getting this posted and going to bed, I will stop there.