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.