Day 30: Sunday 04/03/16, Lockhart, TX to LaGrange, TX

Today's sunrise during breakfast at Lockhart State Park, Texas.

Day 30 distance: 62 miles

Total miles:  1678 miles

Elevation gain: 1825 feet

Map of today's ride:

What a fabulous day for a bicycle ride! Perfect weather and outstanding scenery! I took many photos today so no more non-picture verbiage for today's blog!

It was around 45 degrees a little before 8:00 am when we left Lockhart this morning, but the sun had just come up and there was no wind. It had the making of a great day!

This was the scene shortly after leaving Lockhart. I thought this might be what it would look like for all of today's 62 miles, but keep scrolling down for the whole ride.

A view of the road early in the ride. It was Sunday, so traffic was very light this morning, although on most of the roads we have been riding in Texas, traffic has been generally very light.

I don't think the cattle I rode by today were familiar with bicycle traffic as they would always look as I rode by. Or perhaps it was my mooing to them as I rode by that always got their attention?

Further down the road, the ditches and adjacent pastures were filled with Indian Paintbrush and occasionally bluebonnets. Beautiful!

Most all of the farming/ranching operations observed yesterday and today are much smaller than what I observed in Hill Country, so what a surprise I had when I saw the fanciest gate yet, to what I assume was a ranch. Texans appear to love elaborate gates to their ranching operations. They also love the Lone Star State symbol, with seemingly one out of every two rural residences displaying at least one Lone Star. I have yet to figure out though,what the deal is with having a big 4 wheel drive pickup with a heavy duty 4 wheeled flat bed trailer being pulled behind. Out of the 100s of rigs I have seen set up like that, I have only seen three trailers that contained anything, and the items being hauled by those three could have easily fit in the pickup box or trunk of a car. Apparently the trailer is a symbol of some sort to a Texan. I could speculate, but want to keep this blog family rated!

I made the mistake of stopping at the top of this hill to take a picture of the road just traveled. The mistake was it gave two dogs time to get a full head of steam as they ran down their long driveway toward me, barking like crazy. I took off hoping I could outrun them, but turned out they were just driveway runners and didn't come out on the road after me.

Hmm, anyone want to restore a slightly older used 10 passenger bus? If so, this one might be available!

OK, so another roadside flowers image. The flowers just went on and on. I have never seen as many wild flowers as today.

Just a pretty scene. As I said yesterday, the same type of scenery could be seen in many places in the \Midwest.

I haven't looked back to check the earlier blogs, but think this might be my first horse picture. Nice looking animals!

Indian Paintbrush.

A pasture filled with Indian Paintbrush and bluebonnets. The Paintbrush I've seen vary in color from salmon to almost a bright red.

This pasture is filled with bluebonnets.

A close-up view of a bright bluebonnet.

A true Texas Longhorn. There were probably about 15 Longhorns in this herd, but this one appeared to be the Granddaddy!

I observed several shut down oil wells earlier today, but this one looked like a new one and it was pumping.

The LaGrange, Texas, County Courthouse. It is a beautiful old building.

I didn't check to see if the Texas Quilt Museum was open or not, but I know several quilters who would love to visit this place.

The final photo of the night has to be another flower picture! The Indian Paintbrush created a very pretty cemetery.

I am guessing you will see more flower pictures tomorrow as we are riding 88 miles to the Mexican Hills Ranch, a working ranch outside Richards, Texas. We will be spending a day off there. I am told we have only begun to see a lot of wild flowers!