Camping!!

                   Our camping experience at the ranch was so rich.  So incredibly beautiful.  So isolated.

Contrast that with the next night when we camped at an RV park near Wyldewood where the owner moved his pickup truck to make room for us by a major highway at the entrance to his RV park where workers (mostly road workers) live for months at a time in temporary housing.  A very bleak place but the showers down a long road were outstanding in their own sort of primitive way.  Good thing we’re not prissy.  I’ll include some pictures and you’ll likely be able to tell the difference between the ranch camping and the major highway camping.

I’m getting whiplash from the wide variety of lodging arrangements.  For 11 straight days we have slept in different places.  We are learning a new level of adaptability.  I continue to give David high marks for the way he’s thriving on this trip.  To think that he had a heart attack in November and is riding so much and putting up with camping and all the flexibility that this trip requires is pretty amazing. We’re aware of how lucky we are to be alive and well enough to withstand the rigors of such an undertaking.

We said goodbye to Tony, our good riding and traveling companion.  We’ve had some incredible bonding experiences over the past 12 days and are so very glad he was able to join us.

You might recall that I whined about my legs giving out on me begging for a couple days off.  The past two days we visited Bucee’s (a famous chain of gas stations and truck stops in Texas) .  David and Tony were not thrilled but accommodated my desire to stop.  We also visited friends which was very, very good and helped to make us feel human again. 

Now we will backtrack a bit to get back on route after a day in Austin and I’ll have to face that Texas hill country.  Am I strong enough?  We will find out.  I’m nearing the halfway point of the ride.  I can’t quit now. 

It’s so good to know that Doug is at the house doing home repair while I ride bike.  What a good guy.  I need to keep stroking his ego so he keeps at it.