Day 29: Saturday 04/02/16, Blanco, TX to Lockhart, TX

Scene at the entrance to Lockhard State Park, Texas, our camping location on Day-29.

Day 29 distance: 64 miles

Total miles:  1616 miles

Elevation gain: 1604 feet

Map of today's ride:

We woke up this morning to the Cocka-doodle-doo from roosters that apparently live in the woods around Blanco State Park. I remembered them from last year. The sky was clear this morning, but the temperature was somewhere between 37 and 41 degrees, depending upon which weather service web site you looked at on your cell phone. Regardless of the exact temperature, it took some effort to get out of a warm sleeping bag!

There will be no whining today. Anyway you look at it, it was a spectacular day! It warmed up quickly, the roads were fairly smooth, but best of all, the wind had changed from the SSE to the NW which is exactly what was needed since we generally rode to the SE all day today. The wind was gentle today, not powerful like the day before, but the combination of all the good conditions made for an easy 64 mile ride!

I had planned on stopping my ride for a brief moment where my 2015 C2C ending accident took place last year.  However, I failed to spot the exact location and rode past. Part of my confusion was the road and shoulder had been improved since last year. Probably best I didn't pinpoint the spot anyway. Regardless, after that point, I rode about 35 miles on roads I haven't been on before and it was great! Today's route took us right between San Antonio and Austin, Texas, and we definitely are now out of Texas Hill Country. The terrain currently is fairly flat and whatever is down the road I will see for the first time when I get there.

This picture was taken a few miles outside Blanco very early in the day. I continue to be amazed by all the brilliant green colors. We had a few hills to climb today, but as the ride progressed, it became obvious we were leaving Texas Hill Country.

 

A roadside full of Bluebonnets, the Texas State Flower.

 

A pretty shade of a Paintbrush type wild flower.

Bubba recommended the Texas Pie Company, in Kyle, Texas, for lunch today, about 40 miles into today's ride. I had my usual lunchtime BLT, but today included a piece of coconut creme pie to celebrate getting past the point of my 2015 C2C accident. Both the sandwich and the piece of pie were tasty!

A roadside scene shortly out of Kyle, Texas.

A scene close to Lockhard, Texas. This part of Texas reminds me a lot of where I grew up in the Midwest. Note that there are no longer any hills in the background.

This is coaster John McIntyre from Kauai, Hawaii, coming into camp after today's 64 mile ride. On this C2C ride, John is known as "Curly" as there are two other coasters named John.

Tonight's camp site at Lockhard State Park, Lockhard, Texas. It is nice to have the tents set up on grass rather than sand!

Tonight I had a new drive chain and rear brake pads installed along with my rear bicycle wheel trued. We have two able bicycle mechanics along on this C2C. On the left is Dave "Coach" Moss from Michigan. Dave rode a trike as a member of the 2015 C2C. On the right is Chandler Otis, Bubba's long time bicycle mechanic out of Florida.

Tonight's menu.

It has been over a week since I last reported the problem with my Garmin 1000. I believe the problem was due to a faulty USB charging cable. I noticed that it wasn't getting charged as quickly as usual so changed cords and no more problems, Not sure what the mechanism was for creating the fault, but I am sticking with that theory and hope all incidents of a reset are behind me!

I removed the link to my last year's C2C blog as the ride will be all new to me as well as most of you, starting tomorrow.