The day started cold. We arose early doing most of our breaking of camp and getting breakfast before light. I hit the road just after light. True to the predictions of our map we hit a pretty long steep climb right away. Given how cold it was the effort of the climb helped to warm me up a bit, but I was still not particularly warm when I reached the top. The climb went well and then we got into some rollers.
Eventually we hit a junction and a couple of the riders were stopped there to take off cold weather gear. I did the same and then proceeded on.
There were a lot of high deer fences along this stretch. Some of them looked very expensive.
At one point I was on a downhill doing about 30 when I swear I saw an Ostrich on the other side of the fence. I considered stopping to get a picture, but the steep uphill ahead of me made me reconsider.
Earlier I did spot some deer. I got a picture in this case because I had just pulled over to check my tires after rolling through a pile of glass from a beer bottle. (Please if you are going to drink and throw your empties from the car, use plastic or cans.)
Later on I caught up with John and bob (his trailer) and asked him if he saw it. He said he didn't. For awhile I was starting to think that maybe I've been on the road too long.
When we got to the town of Hunt I was ready for a break and as I rolled into town there was a place called "The Store" which had a bunch of our groups bikes parked out front. I stopped there and had a chopped beef sandwich and some tea. I also queried some of the riders that arrived after me if they had seen the Ostrich. Indeed they had, so my sanity is no longer in question. Some even claim to have photos.
At this point we were riding along the Guadalupe river. There were lots of big oaks and other trees that shaded the route, which made it quite pleasant.
At one point we saw this fence with many shoes on the posts.
I knew that there was a cutoff on Harper Rd. that I could take and when I found Harper Rd. I took it. The route was pretty good and I would highly recommend it if you don't want to go through town.
After crossing the freeway we mad a right onto a Ranch Road and hit a very steep 14% gradient climb. Fortunately it was short, but it was challenging. The road was nice and took us through and area that looked like very high end ranch homes. It really looked a lot like some rich dudes driveway.
The road was a reasonable seal coat using what appeared to be crushed basalt. Eventually the road changed color because the seal coat rock changed to crushed limestone. From here on the road started to look more and more desolate. Winding around and up and down. The homes started to look less upscale.
At one point we rode past a house with at least a half dozen cats outside sunning and cleaning themselves. There were also an equal number of cars.
Later on the road approached another house and then diverted to one side going between a fenced yard and an outbuilding. It really looked like the road was a continuation of a driveway that went on out into the back of some guy's property.
It was around here that I swear I thought I started to hear banjo music.
From here on for awhile the road started to look more and more like a farm access road that one would find on some private property. All the while the surface remained reasonably smooth but there were a lot of ups and downs that required significant breaking. In a couple of cases it looked like I could have gotten some serious air if I hadn't ridden my brakes.
Eventually it started to look a bit more like a real road with significantly long straight sections.
When we got to a place called Morris Ranch I took a picture of some buildings. I also took another shortcut to get to our camp site ending the day with about 74 miles of riding.
We stayed at the Lady Bird Johnson Park. The facility was nice but lacked reasonable access to electricity for tent campers. I ended up having to sit by an ice machine on the ground plugged into a spare outlet behind it to charge my stuff up and do some of my blog.
For such a long day I felt very good at the end. I'm starting to think that I'm finally getting into good shape.
We are officially halfway. To celebrate we went out for pizza and beer at a local pizza shop about a mile from where we camped.
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