Day 8
   
   5/5/01
   Mile 815
   Amarillo, TX
   
   A glorious day! This is the kind cyclists dream about - perfect
   temperatures, smooth isolated roads with zero traffic, no mechanical
   problems, and the wind at your back. In the morning, I looked around in Lubbock
   to find a place to eat, but there were none in sight.  So I asked the
   solitary car stopped at the stop sign.  The driver said she was on her
   way to sell her homemade breakfast burritos at the airport, and you
   can guess what happened next - she served me right out of the back of her
   pickup.  Sometimes fate smiles upon you.  When it does, smile back.
   
   I hung out all day in the 17-20mph range, VERY fast for traveling
   with heavy packs.  I had the energy to do that since I'd had a couple of
   short days in a row, and the stiff tailwind made it possible.  I
   breezed past farmer's fields which were now lakes due to the 10-ish inches of
   rain the previous day.  The frogs were having a heyday, and quite a
   few waterfowl as well such as mallards, cranes, and heron that had somehow
   found the spot.
   
   I arrived at Amarillo at 5pm, much earlier than expected.  I had
   called ahead to Hill's sporting goods shop, and they said they had the tires
   I was looking for; turns out when I got there they didn't, making for a
   needless detour.  At any rate, I was far under my calorie budget for
   the day, having had only a couple of those breakfast burritos, a half
   Subway sandwich, and a handful of M&Ms, so I stopped at one of those
   all-you-can-eat pizza buffets (Cici's).  First a salad, for nutrition;
   then calories, calories, calories.  After 14 slices of pizza I decided I
   was probably low on carbs too, so I ate 5 slices of dessert.  And a
   cinnamon roll.  There, that ought to do it.  

   I still had a little time before dark so I headed west out of town a
   couple of miles to see the "Cadillacs stuck nose down in the ground"
   display, which were placed in a field by a millionaire years ago and
   have become something of an American institution.   At that moment, I
   decided that my financial goals in life are to be rich enough that people
   label me "eccentric" instead of a "kook".
   
   There is a campground several hundred yards away.  My home tonight.

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