There are no more pre-dawn starts on this journey! When we left Kerrville on Saturday morning, my headlight began to malfunction almost immediately. I have done what I could to try fixing it, but it is all solid state controls. Translated into English, that means that a monkey with a hammer and a screwdriver has ZERO chance of making it work again. So Karen wins, and we are sleeping in until 6:30 mornings so we are on the road around 8 AM, after packing up and getting breakfast.
Today we started out in a light overcast and 72 degree breeze. As we took off to the north, we experienced an unusual occurrence - a light breeze out of the north. After over 3 weeks of winds out of the southern quadrant, giving us almost constant headwinds, it seemed a rude twist that as we start heading north we get a new set of headwinds. The road to La Grange was pretty flat and a fun ride for the first 20 miles, then the shoulder of the road got very rough, dropping our top speeds from over 20 mph to near 15 mph.
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| The flat ground near La Grange, from a high overpass |
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| One of the Longhorn Ranches |
After getting off the main road and back on the surface roads, we saw lots of game ranches - longhorns, herefords, exotic game, all kinds of differing stock on some very pretty properties. No more rolling hills with steep climbs of 6% or more, these are more rolling plains with just as many climbs, but more on the 3% grade. We rolled around La Grange, then through several little tiny towns. We apparently just missed (by two weeks) the Round Top - Independence antique extravaganza. These two small (population less than 100) villages have a HUGE antique swap meet the last week of September and first week of October. There were still Industrial size display tents set up along the road for about 5 miles. From the looks of things, this must have been a madhouse for that two weeks. The advertising along the road said that they do this twice a year, first week of April and October.
No other excitement this time, except that my rear tire went soft twice on the ride. First time I just blasted it with Karen's inflator, The second time I pumped it up fully with the floor pump from the truck, at the last rest stop. That got me through the day, tonight I have to change out tubes in the tire so we are ready to go tomorrow.
Tonight we had dinner at La Casita in Navasota, pretty good Mexican food and very generous quantities. I had two entrees (trying to fuel up for tomorrow) and Karen had an entree designed to be shared between two people. We are starting to eat like we are really burning calories.
Father made the rest stops today, including the one I really needed to inflate my rear tire. Tomorrow - Navasota to Shepherd, and only one day after that in Texas.
Today's map, mileage, and so on:
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/233892589#.UHzCuyWVUPw.blogger
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