Being well rested definitely helps! We left the B&B around 7:30, after going to sleep around 9PM. We stopped 10 miles down the road at a gas station with the biggest selection of merchandise we had ever seen. They had the basics (snacks and soda) and so much more (cattle branding irons, cow hides, lawn furniture, and gardening materials) (see pics below). After filling up our waters we were back on the road. We encountered a lot of steep uphills but the sun was blocked by clouds most of the day which kept the temperature 10 degrees coolers than it would have been. In Winchester we had a Sabra sighting (see pic below) Towards the end of our ride, we entered the Buescher State Park (where we were able to fill our water bottles for the first time since the gas station). A park ranger approached us as we drank and asked if he could take a picture of us for the park's new brochure. They wanted a picture of two "real" bikers entering the park...of course we couldn't say no! After taking some pictures, he pointed us in the right direction and wished us luck. The park roads were nicely paved and were pretty shady (so far the park seemed like some of the other bike trails we had been on). After a few minutes on the 'trail,' we soon found ourselves climbing insanely steep hills followed by downhills that allowed us to go up to 32mph. Unfortunately, the down hills were much shorter and were much more mild than the uphills that followed. As we exited the park (11 uphill miles later), we passed a sign warning of steep inclines (see pic below). We drank some water. The water in our water bottles had gotten so hot that it was actually too hot to drink, but we did anyway. The hills calmed down from that point on which was nice. We arrived in Bastrop around 2:30pm and went directly to a bike shop to get our bikes serviced (there were some great posters... check out the pics below). Nothing was broken thankfully, but we wanted to get everything checked/ tighten, since there isn't another bike shop for hundreds of miles. We dropped our stuff at the Comfort Inn and walked to Walmart to get dinner.
Thanks for coming along for the ride!!
Check out our route at the link below:
nice beard.
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