It was 85 degrees out today, and brilliantly sunny, with a moderate tailwind. There were some hills at the start, including an 11% grade climbing out of a valley after New Braunfels. Jim is still riding a three-speed, except he won't use the small chainring because he would be cross-geared, so he wound up walking on the 11% grade.
The landscape here has a lot more trees than there used to be. It's mostly live oak and mesquite. There are still plenty of cacti. South of San Antonio it was cacti and scrubby bushes, but mostly open.
I had one big disappointment today. According to my maps, part of the route today was on Farm Road 1337. I kid you not. I was so excited because I was going to take a picture of myself next to the road sign and make it my Google Talk avatar. But I couldn't find any road signs when we were on FM 1337! Hax0rz must have stolen all the signs!
We had breakfast in north San Antonio, at a cafe with Jim's name on it.
Lunch was BBQ 30 miles later in New Braunfels. The Thursday lunch special was sausage. It was OK, but not great.
We got into San Marcos just after 3. San Marcos is a college town with a vibrant downtown centered on a classic Texas square with the courthouse in the middle. Unfortunately all the motels are alongside I-35 a mile from downtown. Tonight it's the Econolodge. $56. Including a totally gratuitous iron and ironing board. The wifi works, so it's better than the last motel. And the hostel didn't have wifi at all.
After we got cleaned up and rested, we walked up into town to find food. There were many choices, but we settled on this very nice tavern claiming to be an Irish pub with Texas grub. Those are all neon beer signs in the windows.
This turned out to be the BBQ Bonanza. This massive portion was $12.00. Jim had to help me finish it.
Here's the map for today's nice easy ride.
Here's the MotionBased link.
2 comments:
Tell Jim to quit walking hills. It's a good thing Iowa doesn't have any hills ;) Oh yeah, I hope you remembered to bring your passports to get back into the US
It was one steep hill. Problem is that I have no rear derailer, so I have the big and middle chain ring in the front.
And it's "hill" not "hills."
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