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Texas


My new bike! I've just bought it from the shop in the background.... The T-Mobile website says that my existing phone is compatible with their American 4G network so I'v... Dallas isn't particularly bike-friendly and I think getting out of the city on Sunday might be a bit... ... this grassy knoll, which you might have heard of. This is part of the view from my hotel room. WFAA is a local television station, which is strange be... In most seasons of the TV show ... The building which is blue in this picture actually displays a multi-coloured light show throughout ... As does the Reunion Tower.... Now the bike is looking ready for touring. It's got a trip computer, three water bottle holders and ... There must be some kind of martial arts event going on at this end of the city. I've been seeing peo... From the outside the lifts in the hotel, you can see part of the Book Depository. Dallas. I don't recognise these birds. Yesterday when I was on the bike, a completely red bird flew up onto ... The proper cycling tour doesn't start until tomorrow. Right now I'm waiting for another train. Dallas. In 2017 I had a car for a day between getting off the plane and getting on the bike, so it was easy ... As soon as I took this picture I groaned because I realised I was going to have to open up the list ... A view along Elm Street. I was semi-successfully livestreaming my journey down this road in my onlin... The Dallas Party Bike. Is that Paul Chuckle's car? Another strange form of transport on Elm Street. These ticket machines take notes as payment and give change in dollar coins. I find I never have eno... North Akard Street. The bulding with the red flying horse on the roof is the Magnolia Hotel, where I... This is the lobby of the global headquarters of the fourth largest telecommunications company in the... The AT&T Discovery District, next to their building, is a bustling place with a market and live ... Dallas. The Old Red Courthouse and the John F Kennedy memorial. The building behind the trees bears the name of the Missouri Kansas and Texas Railway Company. My 20... There was guided tour group not far behind me while I was walking past the Red Courthouse so I got t... The sign above the door calls it the Dallas County Administration Building but it's more commonly kn... Main Street. Looking across the road to the grassy knoll. The man in the purple shirt is pointing to the Book Dep... A view from Dealey Plaza. A JFK tour bus. Dealey Plaza. If that says "HAPPY EASTER" then the building must be wider that I thought. Ready to go! Dallas, Easter Sunday. If somebody asked for a statue of a red panda, they would have been surprised by what they got. I had to stop and watch some other traffic to work out whether this is a roundabout or traffic light... This is the same trail which I used to get into town from the bike shop. I'm now going the other way... Two railway lines used to cross here. Now the South and East arms of the junction are a railway, joi... The spillway where water leaves White Rock Lake. White Rock Lake. A posh neighbourhood. It's Texas. There are two churches on this road. Both have smartly-dressed people arriving for the Easter servic... The main arterial roads are like this, sometimes without the sidewalk, which is why I'm spending mos... Here's something I didn't expect to see in Texas. Bass Park. I don't think these are bluebells, not even Texas bluebells, which are a real thing. Some of the roads thay I'm using are back alleys like the one beyond this junction. Rowlett. Rowlett. This is the end of the DART's Blue Line, which is the line which stops at the bike shop. I could cav... "HARDWICKE-ETTER COTTON GINNING AND CLEANING SYSTEM" Oh. This screw has fallen out. The two remaining screws in this strut are loose. Perhaps I forgot to... This is a real roundabout, except that it has a STOP sign. That's where I'll be going next. The Heroes Memorial Bridge. I didn't mean to have this many pictures of it. That's Dallas done. Strangely all the bridges on this road have a hard shoulder but the sections on ... Rockwall. The three figures with spades are called the Discovery Statue. When I read that, I thought it must b... Rockwall. The flattened animal has a hard shell but it's in such a bad condition that I can't tell whether it'... I've got a flat tyre already. At least I won't have to spend long looking for what caused it. I've never seen a wheel attachement system like this before. If I get this bike home, it won't be ab... Royse City, where I will be staying tonight. I think that was probably the first 40-mile ride I've done in over 4 years. This year I'm not trying to achieve anything specific, like crossing a continent under my own power,... The room is big. Royse City is a small place but it's on Interstate 30 so there is quite a choice of places to eat. O... I didn't bother going to Denny's either. The breakfast here is actually pretty good. There's sausage... This machine has just made me two pancakes without me having to put any batter in it. There isn't much of a gap between the end of one set of roadworks and the start of the next. There clearly is mud. I am spending the first half of today on this road: Texas state route 66. It's nothing to do with th... Cows. Really the only reason I've taken this picture is because I was tiring on an uphill section so... While I was having that rest, I saw that green vehicle coming along the track kicking up dirt. It st... Flat scenery. Today's route has some gentle gradients but nothing serious. Given that on average it'... I think it might be a roadrunner. An old railway line in Greenville. I'm glad I didn't bring a bicyce. Greenville. Greenville. I haven't seen any vineyards around here. This looks like a turkey vulture. The sports ground of the Commerce campus of Texas A&M University. Commerce is the name of the to... My hotel. I'm too early to check in so I decided to spend the time putting some more air in the back... The room is about the same size as last night's but with a lot more furniture. There's a point on every trip where I suddenly feel like I have settled into the holiday and that I'... What a haul! I've got a pump and lubricant, day and night ibuprofen pills, some kind of backache rel... The hotel's pool. It's quite cool today, to the extent that I don't think I would have been uncomfortable if I had bee... Today is pretty much 40 km heading North East followed by 30 km heading North. This is where the tur... The North Sulphur River. The best-preserved dead armadillo I've seen. A ranch. Tonight I will be satying here: Paris, Texas. What on earth is that? It's free to rotate so it's functioning as a weather vane but I don't know if... I stopped by the cemetery to check the map and thought it would make a pretty picture. This is the Trail de Paris. It's supposedly part of a much longer cycle route called the North East ... 71 km done, 10 years ago I would have regarded that as a very easy day but it's the furthest I've do... Oh yes. The Eiffel Tower here in Paris, Texas has a stetson on it. I had forgottem that. This microwave oven has a mains socket on it so that you can plug another appliance into it. USB cha... My last view of Paris. I mainly took this picture to show you the weather. The forecasts predict 5 g... The street name signs in Reno aren't the usual green-on-white. Reno, Texas. The path on the right is labelled as a bike path but it's not on my map and I don't know where it go... This one is labelled. It's the North East Texas Trail. I don't much fancy it though because it's mad... When people asked where I was going to ride this year, I said that I would be starting in Dallas and... Cows. Signs saying "Historical marker 1 mile ahead" are common in America. I passed one a mile a... Scenery. Clarksville looks quie pretty. I will be staying here tonight. My guesthouse is near the clock tower but doesn't open for nearly an hour so I'm going to try to get... More street name signs. Incidentally, roads named after dates are very rare in the USA but there is ... An unusual house. The small window panes look like they have been drawn on. Depending which face you look at, the courthouse clock shows that I have either 11 or 45 minutes be ... That's quite an old bench. I passed the time here outside the courthouse adjusting the tension of my... By the front door, there is a note explaining which way to turn the door handle, another explaining ... One of the sitting rooms. The hall. There are written notes all over this house. I like how this one tells you not to forget to take you... ... but this one on the opposite wall says that it doesn't matter if you do. The history of the house, and instructions for the remote controls. I booked a smaller room than this but because there's nobody else here, the housekeeper has upgraded... There's a whirlpool bath, with extensive written instructions of course. I had a long soak in it and... Somebody has taken great care to wallpaper over all the light switches and sockets. The breakfast table. The housekeeper said that breakfast would be ready at about 8 to 8:30 in the mo... The framed picture is the same as the picture on the newspaper. It's from 1952 and shows Louie Norri... I sat here to edit and caption all today's pictures. It's very pleasant with a gentle breeze and win... In some of yesterday's captions, I said that I was let in by the owner of this house. I have now cor... Cars! A rest stop in De Kalb. There are quite a lot of these along the roadside today. New Boston, where I re-tensioned my back spokes again. One of them was very loose but all are still ... New Boston. A large open-sided shed with picnic tables in it. I've seen this kind of thing in America before. Pe... This section of the road isn't very pleasant because the shoulder is quite narrow, sometimes narrowe... Ever since the start of this trip, I have been staying close to the route of the old railway line wh... Scenery. I've now got off the main road and the remainder of today's ride should have been on quiet ... The Interstate also has significant roadworks going on. For the last kilometre of today's ride I get a dedicated bike lane, or a lane bike depending on whic... My hotel here in Texarkana is the building on the left. By the time I get there I will have done 103... I'm intending to have every Friday as a day off this year, because in this time zone my Friday quiz ... One thing that I do like about American hotels is that they always have ice machines. Because it's s... Texarkana sunset. The city of Texarkana gets its name because it is half in Texas and half in Arkansas. Like many plac... I've just bought a new mobile phone. Getting to the shop was a bit tricky. The roads here weren't re... Here's my main reason for coming into central Texarkana: the bike shop. The man there said that he w... North State Line Avenue. The yellow line along the middle of the road is the border between Texarkan... The station building. It might not look it but the station is still active. There is one train each ... That building is in Arkansas. It shows its address as 300 Olive Street. That surprises me because I'... St. James' Church. Some people doing a piece to camera in front of something which has been set up for the eclipse cele... This is the combined Post Office for the two cities, built on a roundabout exactly on the border. I ... Now that I have a working American phone, I can do my online quiz from around here. In about an hour... I think the statue is the Confederate war memorial. I had been sitting on this bench for a while configuring my new phone when suddenly the sprinklers t... This war memorial surprised me. It has a list of names of people who died and then... ... six more. The Texas side of the Post Office is being washed. I wonder it that's to make it look good for the e... The flags are of Louisiana, Arkansas, Texas and Oklahoma, all of which are within 50 km of here. A time capsule. Behind the Post Office, the state border is marked by a little fountain. I now have three phones....