Bastrop, TX: Bears, Sharifs, Olympians and Rockstars, oh my!

Miles since last blog: 27.5
Miles Total: 2273.8

Route

What do all these things have in common, nothing really, except that they blasted through my day somehow.

1. The Bear - Kodiak, this is my new traveling companion. He is a bear, imagine a bear in a felt hat and a dark hawaiian shirt, viola, my new buddy. Nice young kid that I'm helping to ruin with road fever and ever deepening wanderlust. He traveled with me for the first time today, about 9 miles, the farthest he had ever walked in his life. Lets just say that bears aren't necessarily built to walk, but he tried admirably and stubbornly, two important qualities out here. I'm suggesting a bike to him, but either way he'll be fine in a few weeks, always happy to have company. That's a picture of him that you see there.

2. Sharifs - This is for my fellow lovers of the 80's.

Rocking the Casbah - Directions

Step One: Find a Casbah

Step Two: Rock thoroughly

Warning: The Sharif may not like it.

3. Olympians - "After about six weeks," my friend Jolly Green says. "Your body gets into what they call olympic conditioning. It turns into a furnace and burns calories and gives you tons of energy." I just recently passed the 6 week mark after my holiday break and it's true. Unless of course you have just walked 42.6 miles that day, then you feel like a zombie olympian.

It also means that I am losing weight even though I eat like that Phelps kid. It does not however mean that I look like Phelps, unless he was stretched horizontally and wearing a skin-toned inner tube.

4. Time Travel - Today while I was walking a nice couple drove up in a pick up and handed me an energy drink called a 'Rockstar.' Having never really drank energy drinks but having a few miles left of my 130 mile trek in the last 4 days, I opened it up. This is what happened:



After that everything turned purple for a minute and I woke up face down in a ditch twelve miles down the road with little flaming trails still smoldering behind Cherry's wheels. It's a good thing I disabled the flux capacitor or I might be in 1955 right now. Then again at least I'd be way ahead of schedule and I could probably sell all my technological do-dads to various companies or governments for millions. Note to self, enable flux capacitor.

But for now, I'm Back to the Future.