Tuesday, April 2nd 2013.
Social life, I hit 1000 miles and a ride to Camp Wood TX
Last night, Monday, we were all invited to an Icecream Social
by the Bubba’s Biking Crosscountry group, who we’ve passed and been passed by
along the roads to Florida, where they are going. They have men and couples in
their group, so they were delighted to have women coming to visit. Bubba is an
Extremely Large Man who used to be a police officer in St. Louis, and has
retired and created cross-country biking trips where they have lots of Sag
support, sleep in tents which are erected and taken down for them, and even
have their laundry done. BUT they do sleep in tents and I have to say I love
having a bed every night and a hot shower in the room. He also does a week-long
trip to Florida which is apparently great fun and there is an exuberance about
him which is infectious. Also one man is riding a recumbent three-wheeler trike
on the road, which I don’t think we’d allow.
Anyway, after dinner Bubba’s two big trucks and a van came
over to get us and drove us to the other side of Fort Clark, which is an
enormous old Army training base dating back to the 1850s, according to the
lists of officers on a big memorial. We were in the motel and they were in the
campsite with picnic tables under a wooden shelter. They had loads of icecream
in cups with toppings and sauces and whipping cream, and then we all sat and
talked to each other. I talked to a couple from Wisconsin who are riding a
tandem and who have passed me several times and we call hello along the way.
They are always faster than I am and the husband said that this is the first
trip like this they’ve tried together.
Today, Tuesday, April 2nd we left Fort Clark TX
and rode along country highways between ranches and open lands and a flock of
white and black goats, and a few cattle, and not much else, to vary the ups and
downs of the highway. I did 30 miles and
then felt the wind and the climbs were enough – and I had achieved today’s
goal: I have now ridden 1,022 miles – over a thousand miles on my way to
Florida. YAY!
The Sag drove us here to this tiny one-street town of Camp
Wood TX. The only newspaper available is called “The Leakey Star” because the
next big town is Leakey. I don’t know why it’s called Leakey but maybe I will
find out. The big front page news is that that there was a discussion about
installing air-conditioning in the school gym, and this weekend is the Wild Hog
Festival and Craft Fair in Sabinal Park, and there’s a photo of one man with a towel chasing a somewhat small
hog around an arena while another man seems to be running after him. I don’t
think it’s quite the same as bullfighting but who knows?
Tomorrow I am going to take a rest day – mainly because it
is a climb of the West Texas Hills which is not what I enjoy doing – and I’ll
ride the next day when it’s a mixture of climbs and descents. This hotel was
right next to a Laundromat so I did all my washing to keep my bike clothes clean.
There’s a light drizzle which so rare in Colorado from low gray clouds over the
sky that it feels refreshing and cooling. They’ve been threatening thunder
storms but so far, it’s all talk. I wandered down the One Street which has a
hay store, a garage, a tire store, a mohair store (in Texas?), a convenience
store which we all visited, and a restaurant where I had an excellent
quesadilla and which we had to get to for lunch before 2 p.m. when they closed.
There is a post office, and a hardware store, and a real estate office (closed)
and a local grocery store which already had pots of summer plants on display at
the front.
We are half-way to Florida – we arrive May 2nd. I
can’t believe it’s going by so fast.
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