Saturday, April 2, 2011

April 2, 2011. Kerrville to Blanco, TX. 64.8 miles.

This was my first day riding with the group, and it was a long one! I had forgotten how precise Woman Tours is with their cue sheets. It is a pleasure riding with them, not only the people riding, but the people who take care of the riders. We are made aware of every unsigned road on our route and every bakery and dairy queen along the way. It was a beautiful calm morning and I took a reflective picture as we crossed the Guadalupe River. I saw my first longhorn cattle pretty early on.
The SAG car was waiting for us at the 20 mile point, and shortly after that we entered the little town of Comfort, where many of us stopped at the bakery. I bought a cup of coffee and a bacon and chive scone, most of which I carried with me on my bike when I left (could not eat it all).

Most of our ride was on county roads, with only a short stint on the highway just outside Comfort.
Texas Hill Country is, well, hilly! We had rollers all day, which was great fun on the smooth road, but not so much fun on the chip seal roads. We passed many large ranches, each with their own remote controlled gate. Some had fanciful decorative gates, and some had stone walls with iron grating for a gate.

As we went up and down the hills, we saw flood gauges at every low spot in the road. The bridges were designed to let the water flow over, under, and around them. Some roads had permanently installed floodgates, open now, but capable of shutting off access to the roads during high water times. That must be something to see! At about 2 PM I started flagging, and realized that I had not eaten lunch--never a good thing for me! So I stopped and ate the rest of my scone, drank some recovery drink, and made it to the end in good form.
Dianne and I finished the ride among the last 5 riders, showered, played a few games of Scrabble and went to dinner on the front lawn. Below are Alice, Nancy, me, and Dianne.
We are staying at the Blanco County Inn, which includes guesthouses, motel rooms, and a cottage. We were fortunate and got assigned to the cottage--there are 4 of us in here, each in our own bedroom. There are 2 bathrooms, full kitchen and laundry facilities. Oh, and a table and chairs for playing Scrabble. What could be better than that?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Nice pictures - I love seeing what you are seeing. Aren't you happy that you are on the green end of the tour?

The motel/lodge/cottage sounds like a wonderful place to stop and you all look very happy.