Heading East

Thursday March 1, 2018

We knew for sure (!) we had a moderate 40 mile day today heading east back towards Austin, same terrain, same rolling hills.

We grabbed a quick breakfast at the hotel and headed out into cooler misty weather again. We were riding what is called the Pendernales Cutoff in order to get back to Austin to spend the weekend with my sister Donna and brother in law Gary. This would take us to Johnson City for the night. Hometown of President Johnson, founded by his uncle.

We had our first “debate” of the ride midmorning when Mike thought we should take the scenic loop to stay off the main roads. By now I was ready to bike the highway in order to bypass the hills and make a beeline to Johnson City (Mike says I was like a horse heading back to the barn). He won the debate and rode a half mile in front of me to avoid my vocal disagreement. My theme song on rides like this is Paul Simons “50 ways to leave your lover”. I want this blog to be a true account so I am including the hard stuff, and I felt there was a lot of hard stuff in these hills of Texas!

The morning turned around quickly when we started to see more livestock.

I turned into a happy camper!

We didn’t ride through any towns, or even busy intersections all day, I just concentrated on playing with all the gears my new bike has, and getting up the next hill. With all the complaining I did, the end of a hard day brings so much satisfaction for a job well?? done.

We got into Johnson city, cleaned up and walked to the Pecan Street Brewery for dinner. What a riot! The townspeople were interesting and curious. The older rancher sitting next to me got so excited talking about bluebonnets he could hardly contain himself.