It felt surprisingly good to be back in the saddle on a gorgeous sunny, breezy day in northern Texas. Everyone had warned me about how dull this stretch of my trip would be, and I think they're right—if you're unfortunate enough to be traversing Texas via Route 82 in a car. But on a bike you are physically and mentally engaged with your surroundings (and your vehicle) in a way that you can't be in a car, except perhaps in the most demanding of driving situations, like navigating the narrow, winding, cliffside roads of the Pacific Coast Highway or trying to stay on the road in a Vermont blizzard. I have certainly had some dull moments sitting alone in my tent at night, but not once have I gotten bored on the bike.

I am enjoying the general hugeness of everything out here. Any given cattle ranch goes on for miles, a collection of vast swaths of blowing prairie grass, clusters of browning oak and pecan trees, the occasional pond or bright green juniper bush, and the black bumps of grazing cattle off in the distance. The cows have a very nice life here. I'd guess that every cow in northern Texas has at least one acre to itself. In Boston, I'd guess that an average acre has over 100 people living in it. So you can imagine how some quality time spent riding through these long stretches of relative sparsity is both awe-inspiring and very therapeutic for a city-dweller like myself.

Oh yeah, and the sunsets are beyond spectacular, like the kind you create when you're 10 years old and are handed a box of pastels in art class for the first time and go nuts layering every vibrant color imaginable and smudging them all together. I was so mesmerized by tonight's display that I nearly forgot that sunset means I need to find a place to camp for the evening.

I stopped at a roadside picnic area to check the GPS and find out how far away the nearest side roads were (like I said, everything's pretty spread out here) and determine whether there was any chance of a house nearby, or if I should just haul my bike and stuff over a fence and into a field. A guy named Jim, who'd stopped to walk his brand new puppy, asked where I was headed, and mentioned that he's been planning a horseback ride from Canada to Mexico.

I don't think I've mentioned this before, but one of my favorite parts of this trip is getting to hear about other people's dreams of adventure. It seems like almost everyone has something deliciously grand, daring, and terrifying in mind that they wish they had the time and/or courage to do. I can now say confidently, from experience, stepping back for a moment from the day-to-day ups and downs I have experienced along the way, that there is absolutely nothing as satisfying as living out a longtime dream. Man. I sure hope my trip inspires at least one other person to take that epic kayaking trip, or ride that camel across the Sahara, or quit that job and move to Utah to become a snowboarding instructor. Or start that rock band, or orphanage, or wine bar. The world needs more wine bars.

Anyway, I wished Jim well and got back on the road. By then I needed to hustle to find somewhere to sleep before dark. I decided to turn onto the next side road and when I did I rode about a mile or so until I came to a farm at the top of the hill. A tall guy in his 40s was just about to get into his truck, so I explained my situation and asked if I could camp out in one of the many vast fields nearby. He said he couldn't see that being a problem, but it was really his father's call since it was his property. As if on cue, Jerry emerged from a tool shed and said I was welcome to set up my tent right on the lawn.

As I did his wife Betty came out and asked if I'd like a shower and to join them for dinner. Of course I would! They assured me it was nothing fancy, just leftovers, and that the chicken had been left in the oven a bit too long the other day while they were at church, but I thought it was all delicious. I enjoyed hearing stories about their multi-talented family members and seeing their creations: a set of Adirondack chairs (are they still called Adirondack chairs in Texas?) their granddaughter built, the dining room table their son made almost 30 years ago which has never needed to be refinished, and, most impressively, the gorgeous quilt that Betty's mother, who lived to be a just a few months shy of 100 (Betty's grandmother lived to be 111!), painstakingly stitched by hand. They estimate the quilt contains close to 60,000 stitches.

As for Betty, she is quite the cook. She single-handedly cooks Thanksgiving dinner for her entire extended family each year (we're talking at least 60 people, judging by some of the group photos hanging in the hallway), and donates complete turkey dinners for 25 people as a fundraiser for her church each Christmas Eve. Probably most staggering is that she taught herself to decorate cakes back in the 70s and since then has made over 11,000 wedding, birthday, and other special occasion cakes, a small fraction of which are represented in her extensive cake photo album. She even gave me an autographed copy of a cookbook of family recipes she put together and sold, again as a fundraiser. I will share with you here one particularly ingenious and tasty-sounding recipe, submitted by a grandson.

Microwave Popcorn
Put popcorn in microwave.
Push "popcorn" button.
Open door.
Careful, hot!
Put in a big bowl and take to living room.