Sometime in the middle of the night when Tim woke up and stirred me awake, I asked him what time we were leaving in the morning.  Since we have under 50 miles tomorrow and since people aren’t feeling well, the group decided that we will go whenever everyone is ready.  That was music to my ears, since I needed all the sleep I could get.  We finally got out of the tent at 8:30 AM, over 12 hours after I entered the tent last night.  My stomach actually felt better and I scoffed down a peanut butter and jelly sandwich that I made yesterday but couldn’t eat.  We will see how that feels in my stomach soon.​

Jackie and Jim was still not feeling perfect, but decided to ride today.  It is under 50 miles, so everyone felt confident about being able to finish.  We were on the road by 10:20 AM, and by 11:45 AM, Jackie was sick and had to be picked up by Patrick.  Oy…poor Jackie.  Patrick showed up 30 minutes later and off they went.  Jim was feeling OK, so he decided to continue on today with the rest of the group.

After the 15 mile break in Maynard, we stopped in Coldspring at mile 29.  After the break, everyone followed me down a dirt road that was not the right way to go…sorry everyone.  At least the wrong turn wasn’t yesterday when we were doing over 80 miles!  After correcting the route we were off for the last 15 miles of the day.  We crossed over a bridge with a view of Livingston Dam before arriving to the campsite before 3:30 PM.  

Today is not going to be fun.  I woke up around 2 AM with a weird feeling in my stomach.  I managed to go back to bed, but when the alarm went off, the stomach ache was still there.  When I went to the RV, I found out that Jim was also not feeling well.  That pretty much negates that it could be something I ate since Jim and I have pretty much opposite diets in that we don’t eat any of the same food.

I couldn’t bring myself to eat anything, but I made a peanut butter sandwich to take with me.  Hopefully I will be able to eat it at the first break since I won’t be able to ride 84 miles without any food for energy.​

We managed to leave right after 9 AM.  As seen from Patrick’s photo, none of us really seemed excited to be leaving for a long 80+ mile day, except maybe Mary:

Just when all was going well, the road we were on had construction on it.  We had to walk some ways since it was impossible to ride.

After we left the “pub” we continued on until we came to Giddings, 12 miles later.  We stopped at a grocery store for a break and now had only 20 miles to ride.  When we were about 7 miles out, Patrick surprised us on his bicycle.  It has been a while since he got his bicycle out, so he was pretty happy to be out.  He turned around and we all rode to the state park together.  ​

We got in at a reasonable time of 3:30 PM.  We all had some snacks and set up camp.  Jackie, Jim, and Patrick left to buy some groceries.  For dinner we had hamburgers, salmon patties, black bean burgers, sweet potatoes and salad.  Tomorrow is a a long day compared to what we have been riding lately.  We have over 80 miles to ride, so we plan on leaving by 9 AM.  It is supposed to be another chilly night and a chilly morning, but it is hard to complain when there isn’t any precipitation.

What a luxurious morning.  The alarm went off at 8 AM, but we were awake before the alarm even went off.  Patrick wasn’t coming over till 9:30 AM, so there was no rush.  We causal woke up, dressed, made breakfast, and just relaxed some before Mary and Steve showed up at 9 AM and Patrick arrived at 9:30 AM.   We loaded up Patrick’s truck and by the time all was loaded, we was ready to leave before 9:45 AM.​

It is a chilly morning, so most are dressed a bit warm.  It was nice that Steve was here to take a starting photo:

Check out this great shot:

A nice zero day.  We slept in, had some breakfast, got dropped off downtown, walked around Austin (around 4 miles), had a slice of pizza for lunch (never too much pizza), returned to the AirBnB, watched Christoper Robin on Netflix, walked to a Chinese restaurant for dinner, returned to the AirBnB, watched a rock climbing documentary on Netflix, and am now in bed.  Patrick will be here tomorrow morning at 9:30 AM to pick up our bags.  We plan to be on the road by 10 AM.  Tomorrow we have under 40 miles to ride, so it shouldn't be too bad. We shall see.

Either Bill didn't snore or we were really tired, because everyone seemed to sleep very well in the cabin.  We are all excited to get going this morning since we are riding to Austin today.  Mary gets to see her fiance, Jackie and Jim get to meet up with some old friends, Patrick is meeting up with his future brother-in-law, and Mel, Bill, Tim, and I are going for pizza tonight.  We were supposed to leave at 8:30 AM, but we got on the road by 8:45 AM.  With only 50 miles to ride today, we should be at the AirBnB around 2 PM.

It was just under 60 degrees when we started out.  A bit chilly, but a beautiful morning.

A really nice part of the ride was early on when we got to ride through Pedernales Falls State Park.  The road narowed some and the trees closed in on the road some. 

Right at the boundary of the park, the road took a sharp dive down in a valley.  When we got to the bottom, we were greeted with a river flowing over the road.  All of us knew it was best to walk through the water...all except Bill:

After crossing the river, there was a steep climb up the other side which we all walked up barefoot and a little wet.

We took a short roadside 20 minute break a couple of miles later which ended when Mary stated that she was ready to go...yes, she is anxious to see Steve.  Our next scheduled stop is in Cedar Valley, 15 miles further.  but halfway there, Tim got a flat tire.  Knowing that Steve was landing soon, we sent Mary, Jackie, and Jim on and Bill, Mel, and I stayed with Tim as his flat was fixed.

Over the next few miles we passed a few breweries that were closed at the time.  Gerri was not very happy:

For some reason I didn't sleep too well in the hotel.  Although, it was a good choice since it seemed to rain all night and the wind was pretty strong.  The alarm was set for 6:45 AM, but I was awake by 6:30 AM and just turned if off before it turned on.  I was glad that Tim got up first and I was able to snooze for 30 more minutes, but it was time to get ready since Patrick was going to pick up our stuff at 7:45 AM.  By the time he showed up and we were ready to ride to the RV park, the rain had stopped although the ground was still wet.  We road to the park ate breakfast, and we were all ready to ride by 9:10 AM.

Today is only around 62 miles, so not too bad.  Plus, the wind is forecasted to be out of the west when most of the day we are headed east...bonus!

The weather was perfect and the sky was blue.  The plan was to stop at mile 15 for the first stop that would be just a roadside stop. As luck would have it, Jackie got a flat exactly at the 15 mile point.  As I was just a few day ago, Jackie felt pretty frustrated that she had a flat yesterday and now today.  Flats suck, but they are part of riding.

After a nice break for some of us, we hit the road and headed towards Fredericksburg.  This is the location of our next stop, at the 30 mile point.  We stopped at the Exxon just as we hit town and Jim said that he was having trouble shifting, so the next stop was the local bicycle shop.  Amazingly, with 5 bicycles, this is the first time one of our bicycles is in a bicycle shop for repairs.

They guy knew what was wrong, but didn't have the part to fix it, so he mended it the best he could and we were on our way to the next stop...a brewery just 5 miles away.

After Tim and my obligatory flight and a pretzel at this German-themed brewery, we were all ready to get back on the road and meet Patrick at the Lyndon B. Johnson National Park.

To tour the entire LBJ ranch it was a 7-8 mile bicycle ride.  We decided to take a very abbreviated tour and just visit the graveyard were LBJ and Lady Bird was buried. 

We were then on our way to Johnson City and the Pecan Street Brewery that is there.  Tim and I had been there before, so we didn't need to do the flight.  It was happy hour so beers were flowing and were $1 off. 
​Tomorrow we are 

After a couple of beers it was time to find our way to the RV park that was luckily only 1.2 miles away.  We somehow negotiated our way there and enjoyed an easy evening where everyone made/found their own dinner from the leftovers in the fridge.

​Tonight, Mel, Bill, Tim, and I are sharing a cabin.  I of course am on the top bunk although I really don't mind it.  I just hope that Tim will be able to sleep through the "night noises" made by Bill throughout the night since last time we shared a cabin, Tim didn't get much sleep.  The good news it that we have only about 50 miles to ride to get into Austin tomorrow were we are staying in an AirBnB and have Friday off from riding.  We are all looking forward to it, especially Mary since her fiancé is flying in to meet her.  With that in mind, I don't think Mary is going to get much sleep tonight.

I woke up around 5 AM in the tent to the sound of rain and thunder.  The good news is that we don't have to wake for another 2 hours, so hopefully this is blow over by then.  When the alarm went off at 7:15 AM the rain had stopped although we knew there was a chance of rain throughout the day.  When we were ready to leave at 9 AM, I dressed as I usually do (shorts and no sleeves), and Mel dressed as she usually does (bundled up like she is going skiing).

Today is going to be a challenging day.  There is over 2,000 feet of climbing and there is a strong head / cross-wind the entire day.  The temperature however is perfect for cycling.  It is overcast and in the mid to high 60s.  Perfect.

The first good climb occurred around mile 11 and lasted 2.5 miles.  We climbed from the valley and had a great view at the top and took a short break.

It wound up that it wasn't exactly the top, but after one more hump we were into rollers and then we had a long downhill that eventually ended in Leakey, our first break, 25 miles in.  We were going to stop at a mercantile, but as we entered the town, I noticed a motorcycle stop that looked like a nice place to take a break.

After the break we headed out and came to our second hard climb of the day.  I made it to the top first, followed by Mary and then we waited for the others to arrive.  It took a while when because Jackie got a flat tire.  Luckily where Mary and I stopped had some nice rocks to sit on and wait.

We continued on until we got to our next break location, on the side of the road.  As usual, we made the most of it.

More hills and more wind.  By the way, this area of Texas is called Hill Country:

We now had 35 miles to Ingram, our overnight town, but only 20 or so miles till we meet Patrick.  Todays ride was actually one of my favorite days. The wind we could have done without, but the scenery was beautiful and the rolling hills were fun.

We met Patrick for a break and we how had 23 miles to go. ​

Then we came to Boot Ranch with a fence decorated with cowboy boots:

We finally arrived in Ingram just before 6 PM.  For some reason, this town has a "Stonehenge II".  Of course we had to visit it.

Oh, did I mention that we are staying in a motel tonight?  There is suppose to be strong winds and thundershowers, so we cancelled our tent reservations and made motel reservation.  Anyway, when we checked in, the owner suggested a restaurant to go to for dinner.  Everyone agreed, and Patrick picked us up at the hotel at 7:30 PM and we drove to The Lakehouse and had a really good dinner.

We got back to the room around 9 PM.  I had time to finally catch up on the blog and enjoy a bed versus a tent.  Tomorrow morning Patrick is going to come by at 7:45 AM to get our gear and then we will ride the 2 miles to the campground to start the day.  7:45 AM doesn't sound too bad except that "Goodfellas" came on HBO, and I haven't seen that movie in a long time..  I watched till midnight and knew I better get some sleep.  Until tomorrow...