"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.