I had blogging to do and more races to plan so the adventures were put aside for a week while I focussed on getting things done.

I said goodbye to Kendal and crew and took on the Texas drivers as I drove the 5 hours from San Antonio to Dallas to meet Eric, a Lone Star Spartan. As I got out on to one of the highways I noticed that the speed limit was 85 miles per hour. Thanks to my unit converter app I learned that 85mph is 136km/h. That’s certainly faster than any speed limit I’ve seen before in Australia. I thought that some of the drivers in Hawaii were crazy, but that was before I got to Texas. Despite going 85mph I still had people overtaking me.

The drive was long and boring, no thanks to the awful commercial radio that played the same five songs on a constant loop. When I stopped to get fuel I bought an aux cable so I could at least listen to my own music on the drive. There were two other pit stops on the trip – one was at In-N-Out for lunch and the other was at the Czech Bakery to grab delicious treats for after my drive.

Saturday was the Jailbreak Mud Run and Kristen (another Lone Star Spartan) was my chauffeur for the day. After the run I joined Kristen and my new friends Faye and Lysandra at Babe’s Fried Chicken for lunch. I couldn’t stomach all the batter so I picked out the chicken and enjoyed the never ending sides of mashed potato and gravy, biscuits (essentially savoury scones) and creamed corn.

On Sunday Eric took me to Scarborogh Faire which is a medieval fair just south of Dallas. I saw some great performers, including a band called Tartanic who managed to wake up the neighbourhood with the sound of bagpipes and drums. After a few hours of meandering around the fair we enjoyed a barbecue lunch before heading back to Dallas.

I may not have been on any adventured during the week, but I did learn that Texans really enjoy using the word y’all.

I’m six weeks into my trip now and I’m not feeling homesick per se, but there’s things that I am certainly missing about home. Some of them include:

• Hearing Aussie accents everywhere. Luckily I am streaming Triple J every chance I get.
• Food that doesn’t include high fructose corn syrup. I have started reading the food label of everything I buy as HFCS is everywhere.
• Not having to repeat myself. Nobody understands me when I say things like Maccas, arvo and rego.
• Tax being included in the price. So many times I get the correct change ready to buy something only for it to cost more as I forgot to add the tax.

My next week is going to be another very quiet week but I’m embracing the alone time before the next few weeks which will see me change location ever four days.

Week 6: 4 -10 Apr