It’s dark, I’m up and happy. I’ll get an hour in the saddle before the sun comes up and with it, some of the best views of the day. I’ll head to Shreveport early and miss rush hour traffic. With any luck I’ll be there by 7 AM.

When the sun comes up the views are fantastic. There’s not a lot of development along this part of I-49, just fields, woods and lakes. With sunrise the fog is leaving the forests and they look like the steam coming off a runner on a cool morning. The corn fields are about waist high and appear to be doing well. I’m the quickest thing on the freeway, but I’m only going about 5 over. It’s been my experience that services are few and far between on the run from Baton Rouge to Shreveport on this section of freeway, so plan your stops at the big cities.

I scoot through Shreveport on city roads to avoid the job up to I-20. This could be any US city, which is not a complement. There’s a total lack of creativity and imagination when it comes to urban planning. There must be a huge factory somewhere cranking out these strip malls. Since they pop up overnight, large helicopters must drop them into place in the early hours. The only difference from town to town is the location of the McDonalds with relation to the Big Lots and Subway.

The weather around Dallas is supposed to include thunderstorms. I’m going to go north of Dallas to try to avoid them. This will make Brooks happy since it will involve backroads. I reluctantly put on rain gear as the first few drops appear, but they never mobilize into a full fledge storm.

My route takes me through several towns including Denton. Being this close to Dallas, I should have known better. Traffic moves slowly for several hundred yards until the next mistimed traffic light stops us. Just shoot me. What does Brooks see in all this? I’m  burning out quickly and haven’t put many miles on and start to think about calling it a day in Wichitaw Falls but push on through to Vernon, Texas. The Oklahoma border is just a few miles away along the Red River.  The river doesn’t look like it has much water for a large river and the whole area looks ripe for a fire. It is hot and brown.