Saturday, May 1, 2010

The stars at nightare shinin bright deep in the south of Texas

So it has been a little while since I updated and quite a lot has changed. As usual I will pick up wherei left off... So I woke up at an RVpark on the Bolivar penninsula feeling rested and ready to ride. It had rained all night and I had a fiesta in
my tent. Frozen gas station burrito, chips, bean dip and salsa all washed down with a quart of whole milk, umm boy. I packed up my wet tent and started riding late after chatting with some bird watchers and taking a look and hearing some bird stories. The ride was great with salt water views on both sides as I rode and down along the beachesof the hurricane wrecked penninsula. The rain was coming down hard, but it was warm and refreshing. Before long I was at the end of the road, so I put on my red stocking cap and boarded the Galveston ferry with my bike. A quick boat ride and I was pedalling on to mcdonalds to get online. For those of you that don't know mcdonalds has free wifi now, or at least they claim. Everytime I buy something to eat and get my computer out the wifi is down, not sure if they really have wifi, but it is a brilliant trick, because I have been lured in a bunch of times already. I called Del and we met and pedalled to the hotel. After checking in we walked about five mmiles and got his race packet for Sunday. We ate pizza buffet and called it a night. Danny, Jess and Taras drove down from KC and knocked on the hotel door at 3am. I let them in, gave up the bed at hit the floor. I woke up early and ate 15 bowls of cereal in the lobby before heading out to stretch. We rode our bikes to the race area and Danny checked in before Taras and I rode off to swinmin the sea. We soaked up the sun and salt water and talked about life before grabbing some beers on the beach. Taras is a a guy that you can't help but smile when you are around and I was glad to have such a great day. In fact that may have been the best day in a year. We met the gang at the new hotel and headed to dinner at a local italian joint. The company was great, the fod was fair and the waiter was happy, not bad! I slept in on race day and Jess came to pick Taras and me up to drive out and cheer on the cyclist. The guys both did really well, but the heat was bad and Danny ended up with a few bags of iv fluid after the race. The KC crew headed home and I rode to sonic to get dinner for Del and me. The next day we rode separate but both took it easy and I ended up backtracking to eat with Del. After dinnercwe were spent and didn't want to pedal to the campsite so I cruised up to a bunch of rvs in a city park. They belonged to a traveling carnival that had just finished In town. I spoke with larry the head carnie and that is how we came to sleep with a bunch of carnval people. The next day we rode toward Wharton, Txwhere our host lived. Our host's name was Roy and he is a great cyclist . I know this because met us 30 miles from his house and rode in with us and he kicked our butts. Did I mention he was 59! I would say that I would love to be that fit at 59, but really I would love to be that fit now at 29. Roy is the man. He lived in this amazing farmhouse with his wife Gail and the had a pet cow, a minature donkey named romeo, a killer garden and free range hens. The fed us farm fresh foods and got us drunk on free shiner bock, but the best part was their stories. Those two have been Everywhere, wow what cool lives! In the morning we ate the best breakfast I have ever had and Roy rode the fist 55 miles with us. That stay was a highlight of highlights. We cruised on until near dark for 100 miles even for the day. We camped at buchner stae park and slept well after a day of trying to keep up with Roy. The next day we decided to detour to Austin. We had nowhere to stay but we put the word out and soon a guy Del went to school with who lives in St. Louis sent an email to his company's Austin branch and within moments we were in touch with Paula a super cool architect that runs tons of long distance races. We showered at lance armstrong's bike shop and put on our cleanest dirty shirts before riding to Paula's office. We put the bikes inside and headed to a whole foods catered, open bar happy hour with a band!!! Life is good. We were leaving Friday morning, which was a bummer because both van Morrison and leo keotke were playing shows friday night, oh well maybe next time. We stppoed for breakfast at whole foods and got a late start. Scary highways out of the city led to the hill country. We rode to blanco, pedalled to a brewery, joined a beer tasting(free of course) and took the brewery tour. Thr Real Ale breweary has some killer beer and everyone wanted to know about our trip. After to tour we pedalled a little wobbly to camp to meet up with
my old roommate Todd and his son Atticus. It was awesome to see Todd and listen to some Joe Strummer tunes.

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