Skip to main content

Day 30: Johnson City 73 miles

 The beginning 25 miles of today’s ride goes right into the bike ride Hall of Fame. We left the main road shortly after leaving the campground and rode through neighborhoods. Period. And then farm roads. The surface was gold chip seal and it looked like the yellow brick Road.

There were a number of signs warning us about “loose life stock quote along the way and we encountered a number of cattle greats designed to keep said livestock in check. The grades have been a staple for some time and we’re a little daunting at first, but Bikes Road right over so long as you approach them perpendicularly.

We wrote this loveliness almost all the way to Fredericksburg. Fredericksburg is a fairly large town, about 11,000 people, and it makes a point to showcase the German settlers who started it. Even the street signs get in on the act. Chester Nimitz of Pearl Harbor fame was born here.


Our route took us to a town called “Sandy “which had nothing but a close store. It’s still was worth taking a picture of.



We continued on back roads on our way to Johnson City. It was a day of wildlife and farm life: longhorn cows, deer with antlers, alpacas, and a herd of donkeys.





We turned onto Route 281 for the final push to the road runner RV park. A Dairy Queen got in our way and it seems the perfect place for a milkshake.



We’re now in Johnson City, birthplace of Lyndon B. Johnson. Off to Austin in the morning!

Comments

  1. AnonymousOctober 25, 2022 at 3:14 AM

    Sounds wonderful! Love the opportunity to read your blog! -Gari

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousOctober 25, 2022 at 4:04 AM

    Wow, chip seal comes I'm different colors and I didn't know about cattle grates. You basically had your own safari ride. Debbie

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Day 50- Mexico Beach FL

 We worried about the cool temps predicted for this morning, but the truth was, 46° in the sunshine was pretty pleasant with the right layers. I had a chance to work out some navigation because ride with GPS gave me an old route that didn’t start at the La Quinta, but at a point 7 miles away. I would’ve done better with a paper map, but struggled enough with the phone to figure it out. Even a little win feels good. We rode the 18 mile Timpoochee trail. It went past several lakes and state parks and through some rather fancy planned neighborhoods.  Ankur made a statement yesterday about how much of what we’ve seen has been man-made or planned by men, often as a result of hurricane damage. I found this to be a great contrast to parts of the southwest where nature seems to be taking back the land, growing up over abandoned houses. When I turned onto 98 E. I noticed beach access and headed down to look at the water. There was a kiosk there about artificial fish reefs that caught m...
1 comment
Read more

Day 37- Silsbee Texas

 It’s Halloween and I’m sorry I could not pull together any sort of costume. I did take a stab at it in Austin, but Target let me down. Ann, however, managed to get her friends to take her somewhere where she got pieces to make a very patriotic character. It was fun to ride with her as the drivers honked their approval. As we prepare to leave Texas tomorrow we are beginning to see more water. This morning we crossed the Trinity river right off the bat.  We made a stop after lunch at the Honey Island General Store and met Chuck, the owner. I asked him how the town got its name, and he said “here’s the story I believe…” The people of the town did not own slaves during the Civil War, and as such, did not want to fight for slaveowners rights. The powers that be didn’t approve and decided to set fire to the area they thought the resistors were hiding in. This area was known as the big thicket, a Jungle-y type area with such thick underbrush that it still has not been developed. The...
2 comments
Read more

Day 35- New Waverly, Texas

 Today’s ride was more of the same — farm fields, horses, cattle, even some cows with floppy ears that made them look like they had been mixed with sheep. My day’s regret was not getting a picture. It’s too bad the weather was still gray when we left because the lake and the beach in Somerville would be great in the sun, but with 71 miles ahead of us we were up and out early. Our first stop was Independence, home of the original Baylor University. It started as a girls school, then Baylor Academy (coed- you go, progressive Texas!) and finally the University before it moved to Waco. Locals told us that the current dean has freshman and seniors come to the site each year; freshmen to learn the history, and seniors to say goodbye. The site also included some early Texas homes from the 1820s. One was called a dog- trot house, called that because it has a breezeway in the middle. The center area was often used as a dog kennel. They also had examples of other homes from the 1820s which i...
1 comment
Read more