When I am riding at home in Berkshire County a 50 mile ride would be considered "long"....a half century for heaven's sake! But now, approaching the mid point of our ride across the country, a 50 mile ride falls into the category of a recovery day. And truly, if you were to remove the annoyance of the chip-seal road surface, the last two days have been pretty easy. I know for sure I am getting stronger. And that's good because the next two days in the Texas hill country west of Kerrville we will be doing some climbs that involve grades of 10%. Tomorrow we ride only 39 miles but pretty much all of those miles are either up or down...no level stretches to spin out your legs. These are the last days we will be doing any significant climbing as once we reach Louisiana the remainder of the ride is pretty flat. The challenge then will have more to do with heat and humidity.
This morning when we rode out it was misty and overcast and we couldn't see much more than the road surface a few feet ahead because of the mist on our glasses. But after an hour the clouds lifted and visibility improved. By noon there were breaks of sun and we had a pleasant and relaxing afternoon in a tiny town called Camp Wood. The town had two essential items: a laundromat and an ice cream shop. I now have a suitcase full of clean clothes and got to enjoy a traditional chocolate malted milkshake....the kind made with real ice cream and milk. Yum!
We won't have cell phone or Internet service tomorrow where we are staying so I won't be able to post again until we get to Kerrville on Thursday.
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