Bike Trip Update - Day 9 - San Marcos to Austin, TX

Another bike tour comes to an end. We are in Austin.




Today was cool, overcast, and humid, with a wind from the southeast, which was almost a tailwind. We had nice back roads past Kyle and through Mountain City (elevation 840. Please.) We stopped for breakfast here in scenic Buda.



The breakfast place didn't actually serve breakfast, so we had lunch.



I thought Buda was just a regular small town. But boy was I mistaken! When we got to the outside of town by the exit off I-35, there was a Cabelas! I asked Jim if he'd every been to Cabelas. He said no. I asked him if he'd ever been to the Bass Pro Shops in the Arundel Mills Mall. He said he'd been there. I explained that Bass Pro Shops is to Cabela's what Wal-Mart is to Neiman Marcus.

And this Cabela's did not disappoint. Look at the incredible variety of dead animal heads on the wall!



In the antelope room they had lots of antelope and deer...



Plus, I think just for Texas, a variety of swine like this Russian boar...



and local favorites, javalena.



They also have a former employee on display in his native habitat.



The arctic display had the biggest polar bear I've ever seen.



Along with moose and *two* grizzly bears.



In the Africa room, there is a pride of lions and an elephant like you would expect,



plus obscurities like this bongo!



That rhino is really going to be cool when they are extinct. I wonder if it still has the original horn?



Unfortunately this Cabela's does not have stuffed vultures and stuffed hyenas fighting over a stuffed, dismembered zebra carcass like some other Cabela's do, but we do have a crocodile lunging after some kind of antelope.



And extending the swine theme to a third continent, here's a wart hog frolicking with the cape buffalo.



Cabela's was too much. All that time we spent gawking around in there cost us. As soon as we set out, started raining and continued the whole rest of the way to Austin.

Here's the campsite at our very nice hostel.



And our scenic common area overlooking the lake.



This is quite the contrast to the lousy hostel in San Antonio. The lady who runs the Austin hostel says the San Antonio hostel got kicked out of Hosteling International for being so crappy. We reported that they still have the HI sign out. Austin is so nice.

Here's the route for today.



Here's the MotionBased link.