A hot August night outside Beaumont TX may qualify as one of the worst of my life. I’d cruised out of New Orleans earlier that day, on a chopped ’73 Honda 750. For old riders who remember “Easy Rider,” yeah, it had a metal flake flag painted on the tank and covers. The fuzzy pic above is from earlier on the same trip, and that’s me in the red tank and bushy red beard. I took off on the trip with no notice and fewer plans. Just a backpack with a few clothes, a sleeping bag, a poncho for a ground cloth, and no tent. That last omission proved problematic. The heat and humidity kept me from getting in the bag, but the mosquitoes and unknown biting Southern bugs put me back in. So I gave up about 3 am, and headed west to El Paso.