It's been such a long time, I don't know where to start. When I last posted we were still in the Texas hill country. We got to camp in this beautiful canyon park called Lost Maples State Wilderness Area. I guess there used to be alot of maple trees throughout that part of Texas. Now there aren't many left at all. Although the hill country was pretty green, the only trees I saw were cedars and live oaks. But there are a bunch of maples trees down in this canyon. We trotted our bikes over a 0.7 mile trail to camp in a primitive site. The site was amazing. It was right beside this swimming hole. So pretty.

A couple days later we camped at Cooksey Park. It was interesting to me because it kinda felt like it came out of the fifties or sixties. Our campsite was sectioned off from the other sites by flowering bushes. There were tons of flowers everywhere that someone had planted and cute covered picnic tables.

Two days after that, we made it into Del Rio. Biking into Del Rio, the landscape looked like this:

Biking out of Del Rio it turned into this:

Suddenly, we were in the desert. In the hill country we had nice views, but we couldn't see very far. In the desert, the landscape is huge. We'll be biking along the road and we can see were it goes for miles ahead. It feels like forever to get anywhere because we can see so much. In the picture below you can see pretty much the whole train in the distance.

We went right along the Mexican border for a day or two. We saw the Rio Grande.

The views these past few days have been really amazing. At one point I came around a curve and the view made me feel like I was in a biking magazine. It's just incredible. I have to say, when we were planning the trip I wasn't at all excited about Texas. Every other state, I was excited about. But Texas seemed like it would be long and boring. However, Texas has been a blast. It's a gorgeous state. And it seems like every day the landscape changes a little. I love that. Louisiana was pretty boring for me because it was so flat and the view never changed much. But Texas ......

Anyway, yesterday we biked through the Davis Mountains. We made it over the highest point thus far. I think it might be the second highest point on the route. It was a little over 6000 ft. The climb was definitely difficult. It was pretty steep and just went on and on. But, we made it and we didn't have to walk our bikes, so I'm happy. Tonight we're recovering in a motel. It's pretty good.

Just a few more pictures:

This was before our big ascent. We got to try and guess which one of the mountains in the distance we'd be climbing.

In Kentucky the grass is blue and in Texas it's pink. Go figure.

This was coming out of the Davis Mountains. We went through a sort of canyon with hills like this on either side of us. It was so pretty and so different.

Well, I'm off. We should be in El Paso by Monday.

The Lost Videos

Here's one of the missing videos from my last post. It's sideways, so you'll either have to pick up the moniter and put it on it's side when you watch it, or else get really drunk.

I'll post the other one later. The library is about to close and it takes a long time to upload video. Adios Muchacho/as.

lots of pictures

This is a rabbit we found in Austin.


Dave got this shot of the Austin skyline.


Much like a crow or raccoon, I find myself drawn to shiny objects, like glowy balls hanging from trees.

This was east of Austin on a tiny road connecting two state parks. It reminded me a bit of the Blue Ridge Parkway.

Who'd have guessed that the world's smallest Catholic church is hidden away in Texas?

This is the alter.

These are the pews.

Funny looking cactus.

It's been awhile,

I have a lot to catch you guys up on. First off, we made it out of the wilderness unscathed. It was a crazy day, though. We got hit with a thunderstorm very suddenly in the afternoon. It was so scary. It felt like lightning was striking all around us. There was nowhere around for us to go, so Dave and I jumped off our bikes and huddled under the rainfly. Luckily, after about 15 minutes a passing roadcrew picked us up. They hauled us and our bikes about a half mile to what they told us was a restaurant. When we got there, the place was all dark and closed up and said "Outreach Center" on the door. Even though there was a porch with a couch on it, I was too scared by the lightning to stay outside (I'm telling you, it looked like it was hitting 200 ft away from us. Scariest storm ever.). So, I pushed the door open and let myself in. Inside, I found a small group of women sitting around a table with a bunch of candles lit. I thought I'd walked into a seance. But, it turns out that the outreach center serves as a restaurant once a week. The women were working at the restaurant when the power went out. The ladies were very nice and let us stay inside with them to wait out the storm. It probably lasted another hour. After that storm we decided we didn't want to sleep by the side of the road. We ended up riding 60 miles that day to make it into the next town.

Our next unexpected adventure happened a couple days after that. We'd been riding for about 5 miles and were going through a little town, when we decided to stop at a gas station and fill my back tire. The air pump wouldn't work, and Dave was worried it might be because of my valve. We went to another gas station down the road and that time the air pump did work. Excited, I rode away without a second thought. After making it 15 miles past the town, in the hot sun and on a bumpy road, Dave noticed that I was missing one of my pannier bags. We'd left it at the second gas station from when we filled the tire. That bag had our tent in it, as well as my sleeping bag and sleeping pad and all my spare parts. So, we went back for it. Along the way, of course, I broke a spoke. Which wasn't catastrophic, just annoying and a waste of time. But, after a grueling two hours or so, we made it back into town. My bag was still there, thank goodness. However, this minor inconvenience added 30 miles to our day, making it a 70 mile day for us. So, to answer that persistent question of how many miles we're averaging per day, I'd say it varies. There are a lot of factors that play into it.

But, those two days have been the hardest days on the trip for me. Other than that, it's been really great. This past Saturday we made it into Austin. Austin was such a blast. We stayed with a guy we met on warmshowers.com . It's a website where people offer to host touring cyclists. Our host, Carl, was great. He let us sleep on his couches, drove us all around so we could take care of some bike maintenance stuff, gave us directions to everywhere we wanted to go, and was in general just a good sport about sharing his space, friends, and food with us. I really enjoyed experiencing the city that way. Whenever I stay in a hotel or even a hostel, the city I'm visiting starts feeling cold and kinda lifeless after awhile. Staying with locals kind of puts the city in context for me. That being said, I liked Austin. It reminded me of Asheville, but on salsa-flavored steroids. Dave and I got to spend one day just sight-seeing. We got brunch at a local vegetarian restaurant. We went swimming at Barton Springs Pool. I had never heard of it before. It's a 3-acre pool with a natural bottom that's fed by underground springs. The water is 68 degrees year-round. It was amazing. Here are some pictures.

We also saw the bats. Austin is home to one of the largest bat colonies in the world. There are approximately 1.5 million bats living underneath one of the bridges in Austin. Every night around dusk the bats emerge. Likewise, every night people crowd around the bridge to see the bats emerge. It was a crazy sight. There were just so many bats. We watched for about 30 minutes before leaving, and bats were still coming out. It was a sight.

So, that's the news. We're now officially in the Texas Hill Country. It's beautiful. The riding is definitely more strenuous, but it's a nice change of pace. The views totally make it worth it.

"Dude, May I call you Dude?"

Okay, so I spent a really long time, writing a really long post at the last library, where I thought I had deleted it. I was surprised, no, elated, when I got to this library, to find that it had been saved on Bloggers' website. I finished it, tried to select all of it to copy to another program to spellcheck, and ended up deleting the whole thing. Dang it. This time, everyone gets misspellings and typos

Anyway, to begin again, the title of this post, "Dude, May I call you Dude" is a quote from Carl B., whom we were staying with in Austin. I Just realized it's also a quote from The Big Lebowski, or at least it may be, but it was still awesome. Anyways, He's a really host, bike-mechanic, and tour guide, and both Julia and I are indebted to him and his friends for all their hospitality.

This is a picture of me with his very sweet dog, Beaus (or Bo?):

Anyway, Austin is an incredible city. I was afraid I wouldn't leave, pretty much until we were a good 30 miles out of town. They have a public swimming area called Burton Springs, which is fed by an underground freshwater spring. It has man-made sides that look like a normal square swimming pool, but it also has a mossy rock bottom full of seaweed and mud. Also it's 60 degrees year round. We were thankful for the cold.

Later on that day, we went to the Southern Congress ave. area, and it was cute. it reminded me of West Asheville. I took these videos there. The first is of a spinning cupcake atop an airstream trailer that sells, you guessed it, cupcakes. The second is of a cowboy with a neon rope riding a jack-rabbit. I loved Austin.

Anyway, I'll end this post by saying that we're heading through hill country right now, and have already seen some pretty incredible hill tops and such, even though the highest part is yet to come. In fact I'd say that Central Texas and the Hill country have been the prettiest areas we've been through. not to mention the nicest smelling. Twice now, the air has been so hot that it's heated up fallen pine needles and still standing cedar trees like potpourri in a burner. The resulting smell is pretty fantastic, and I'm sure it would be easy to miss in a car. It's been hard for me to notice unless I'm stopped and there's nothing else around.

As for the climbs that we've been dreading, they haven't been that bad. We're at the lowest load weight possible right now, so that helps, but the heat is pretty ridiculous. It's usually over 90 from about 1pm to about 6pm. Today we've spent a good chunk of that time inside, and we may continue to take that tack in coming days if possible.

Alright, I guess that's all I have. Let's see if it gets erased or not before I get a chance to post it.

Gustav

So we made it west of Gustav's path. I guess that's pretty much all I have to say for now. Except thgat we broke 400 miles this week! Crazy. Also, I'm adding a link on the sidebar to a 501c3 group that I've worked with in the past, in case anyone who sees the blog wants to make a donation, or just check out the work they do. I know most of you are family and friends who are checking in to see how we're progressing, but as we move further along, I may be giving the blog address out to folks who are interested in what charity we support.
Allright, catch ya' later dudes

David