Day Sixty, 090429 - Junction, TX

Day Sixty, Date Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Time in Saddle: 8:28
Distance for the Day: 75.49 miles: From Trey's To Junction
Accumulated Trip Distance: 2682.7 miles
Altitudes: Starting/Ending ??/683’, Highest: ??, Accumulated: ??
Speeds: Avg: 8.9 mph, Max: 29.9 mph
Weather: Still temperate, overcast and humid, slightly sprinkly in the AM
Expenditures: $4.25

I got up at 6:45am and was packed up and ready to go by 7:30am. The temperature was quite mild, and it was very lightly sprinkling, but still not very wet. I got some mosquito bites the previous night (Demitol). The road was wet, and I could see cars raising clouds of spray as they passed (yuck). Had some more energy bars for breakfast (I don’t think I’ll keep quite so many of those bars around from now on), and continued on up the road. I stopped in at the Lyndon B. Johnson State and Nat’l Park at about 9:30 am to find out about the life and times of our 36th President (this area was where he was born and raised) for about 45 minutes, and continued on with still about 65 more miles to go before getting to Austin. I got to Johnson City at 11:45, and stopped in briefly to get a hot choco ($2), before continuing on at 12:20pm, and made an outer suburb of Austin, Dripping Springs, by 3:41. I got a fruit drink at a mini-mart for $1, and a bit later, a Dairy Queen choco malted for $2.25. It was 3:45pm, with 26 more miles to go, and called Walt to get his address.

I got on to a somewhat busy looking highway to get to downtown Austin; it was rush hour traffic and looked to me like a freeway, but I didn’t see the sign that prohibited cyclists (or even pedestrians), but as it turned out, the road reduced down to a shoulderless freeway, and I had to take up a lane! Cars were having to dodge me, zooming past at freeway speeds, some honked, and pretty soon, I noticed a cop car up ahead with the officer looking like he was waiting for me. Wuh-oh. He said they’d been getting a lot of calls about me, and I explained that according to the signage, I was theoretically legal. He seemed to agree with this, but suggested I take the frontage road, just across the way; I readily agreed, and he stopped traffic while I moved my trike over some dividers to get to it. Whew! I made a note to myself to be sure to figure out how to have StreetAtlas pick *bicycle* routes through big cities, and continued forward on the much kinder surface street. At one point, I had to drag out my little GPS unit and notebook to figure out exactly where I was, and where I had to go, and with that info, easily found Walt’s home. I was actually a lot closer than I thought, and got there well before sunset - whew!

Walt has a terrific condo right near downtown Austin; clean, tastefully decorated, and within walking distance of REI (yes!) I took a much needed shower, and he took me out to his two sons’ (Michael and David) restaurant, Third Base (http://www.thirdbaseaustin.com/), an upscale sports bar where the lively downtown night scene was happening. We passed a live band concert in the park, and there were lots of people walking around, enjoying the cooler night air. I had my very first chicken fried steak (deee-licious!) and got a tour of the behind-the-scene inner workings of a sports bar, and it reminded me of the inner workings of a space shuttle, or data center, with tubes of liquids running from mix containers and video and computer cable feeds running out of a rack into the ceiling – neat! After, we went back to the house and I got the guest room with a nice, big bed and private bathroom. Heaven. I slept well, that night, believe you me!

Day Fifty-nine, 090428 - Fredericksburg, TX

Day Fifty-nine, Date Tuesay, April 28, 2009
Time in Saddle: 6:57
Distance for the Day: 58.16 miles: From Junction To Fredericksburg
Accumulated Trip Distance: 2607.2
Altitudes: Starting/Ending 2052’/1728’, Highest: 2237’, Accumulated: 2251’
Speeds: Avg: 8.3 mph, Max: 31.9 mph
Weather: 58° overcast, and humid, staying overcast the whole day
Expenditures: $23

Woke up at about 6am, still somewhat dark out, noticed an odd sort of dripping rain, but discovered it was just an overhead telephone wire. I got up, very carefully avoiding getting mud on my stuff, and packed everything back into the trike. The temperature was quite moderate, and I ate the other half of my Subway sandwich, more to make space rather than from hunger, and was ready to go at 7:20. My exit from Hwy 10 to eastbound Hwy 290 arrived, and I took it to head due east towards Fredricksburg and Austin. The terrain here was rolling hills covered with black trunked live oak trees – kind of pretty, but a bit boring. I stopped at a ubiquitous picnic area to eat a snack of salted cashews and continued on. Still heading for Fredericksburg, at 12:35pm I just got through the tiny town of Harper, where I broke down and bought a cheese Danish and choco milk for “lunch” ($3). The clouds were lifting and thinning, and I could start to feel the heat from the sun coming through them. I got to Fredericksburg that afternoon, a town with a definite German influence, and noticed a sign for $15 haircuts ($20 w/tip). I took a deep breath and decided to make good my threat, went in, and ordered a hack job. “Take it down to less than half-an-inch,” I bravely stated, and then went to get my first ever salon shampoo. Bzzzz, bzzzz, bzzzz went the electric clipper as it chewed through my thick, black and white locks. After it was over, I looked in the mirror and saw the 48-year-older version of my 5 year old self. Hmph! Looks okay, and will certainly be more comfortable in the warm climates I was going to drop into for a while. Besides, two months of terminal hat hair was quite enough, thankyouverymuch. Afterwards, I went to the local library for a bit of wi-fi. There, I successfully activated my new McAfee anti-virus software, and spent a few hours handling a bit of email and blogging. I left at 5pm and went to the east side of town, where I found a spot to hang my sleeping bag, bivvy sack, and other items to sort of dry, in that breezy but still fairly humid air. It was getting on towards sunset, so I found a spot nearby behind a bunch of businesses, and got permission to camp on the lawn at the back of one of them. I had to pick my spot away from where a sweet tempered dog liked to “visit.” With my stuff mostly dry, I set up camp, had an energy bar dinner, and got to sleep around 9pm under overcast skies.

Day Fifty-eight, 090427 - Junction, TX

Day Fifty-eight, Date Monday, April 27, 2009
Time in Saddle: 6:24
Distance for the Day: 56.76 miles: From Trey’s house To southeast of Junction, TX
Accumulated Trip Distance: 2549.0 miles
Altitudes: Starting/Ending 2494’/2052’, Highest: 2504’, Accumulated: 2621’
Speeds: Avg: 8.8 mph, Max: 30.2 mph
Weather: 63° with overcast skies and light breeze
Expenditures: $24

7:24 am ready to go, still overcast and breezy, no rain (yet) very moist, and heading for the next town of Junction; coming out of Trey’s place, saw a bunny rabbit, and saw two turkeys in the middle of the road who flew off to opposite sides of the road; made it into Junction at about 1:30pm soaked to the bone, made big mistake of not putting my waterproof clothes on before getting wet, heavy rain with wind strong enough to make raindrops painful, huge trucks blowing spray every time they passed; had a little tailwind for a short while, but mostly headwind, there was almost always some degree of rain happening, at one point I pulled off the road and waited under an overpass with a couple of cars to let the worst part of the front to pass over, but I began to get hypothermic with numb feet and shivers, so I did pushups off the rail at the side of the road, and some running in place which helped a little; at one point a bit earlier, when the rain and wind got particularly fierce, I pulled-off to the side of the road and stood on the lee side of some bushes, which helped deflect the wind, but the water on the side of the road was getting higher, and started to run like a river, so I got back onto the road and continued cycling; every time I got back to cycling, the hypothermia would ease off, but if I stopped, I started to get it, again; the lightning strikes varied in distance from my location along the road from 12 secs to 5 secs; as I approached Junction, I saw a nice, big bolt of lightning come down with about a 5 sec delay before the crash of thunder; after I reached Junction about 15 minutes later, I saw another big lightning bolt *behind* me that had a 2 sec thunder delay; yeee-hawww! I stopped in Junction at the local truck stop around 1:30pm to change into dry clothes, and put my wet clothes into the dryer; the main compartment of my rear rack pack filled-up with water from all that rain I’d just been through, giving my expensive CC Witness radio/recorder/mp3 player a good soaking. Demitol! I was just starting to actually use that thing. I hoped I could get it to work again by drying it out, but was not optimistic. I also had to dry out the contents of my fanny pack, which included things like my voice recorder, cell phone, money, credit cards, and a bunch of other important/expensive items. I did this while my other stuff was in the dryer. When I finally got most everything dry, I packed it away neatly and stowed it on my trike. The one big problem was my shoes. I couldn’t throw them in the dryer because that might damage the dryer or the shoes, but if I put them on while they were still wet, I’d be certain to soak my lovely dry socks and have numb toes again within an hour. I found a pretty good solution: I got a couple of small plastic bags from the clerk at the mini-mart in the truck stop, and put them over my socks, before putting my feet in my shoes. The plastic bags provided a thin, waterproof barrier between my wet shoes and my dry socks and feet, and kept my feet dry. Earlier on this trip, I’ve used a pair of booties to cover my shoes against moisture, but my feet would still, eventually, get wet. This makeshift solution actually worked better, and I would continue to use it for the next several days with excellent results. Good, eh? I picked up some more supplies from the mini-mart ($15) and a Subway sandwich ($9). The guy at the Subway mentioned that every year, they get ONE really good storm to dump a lot of rain to sustain the local plant life, etc., and this one, the one I just rode through, was it. Just my luck! I left Junction under cloudy but non-rainy conditions, and continued a bit further down Hwy 290 until I hit the turnoff for Hwy 83, where I found a spot to camp within sight of the main highway, but far enough away to not be affected by the noise (N30 26.527’ W99 43.004’). It was a low grass hollow that had some dry, mostly flat, rock surfaces next to a barbwire fence. I had to be careful to avoid the little sprouts of new cactus around, as I walked my trike to the designated spot (I wouldn’t be able to ride it, as the ground was too soft in spots). I set out my gear, had some soggy M&Ms, Power Bars and a meat stick for dinner (note: the little packets of M&Ms are *not* waterproof) – I realized that I had accumulated quite a number of breakfast/energy/power bars for the great West Texas Crossing, but I didn’t really need that many, and would like to start getting rid of them. So, for the next day or so, that’s all I would eat. Ought to be fun. I then hit the hay a bit after sunset, and hoped it wouldn’t rain, though the sky seemed to be clearing at that time.

Day Fifty-seven, 090426 - Sonoroa, TX

Day Fifty-seven, Date Sunday, April 26, 2009
Time in Saddle: 9:05
Distance for the Day: 81.51 miles: From Hwy 290 picnic area To Trey’s off Hwy 290 east of Sonora
Accumulated Trip Distance: 2492.3 miles
Altitudes: Starting/Ending 2879’/2494’, Highest: 2931’, Accumulated: 2641’
Speeds: Avg: 8.3 mph, Max: 27.4 mph
Weather: Overcast, mild temps but windy
Expenditures: $

Got up at 7am, temp 68 deg, very moist, completely overcast, high winds all night, but not raining. It got so windy last night, I thought I might lose my gloves and helmet because I didn’t secure them, before getting in my hammock, but they didn’t blow away, which was somewhat of a relief. I packed my stuff away, skipped breakfast for now, and continued along this loop of Hwy 290, heading back to Hwy 10, which I made by about 8 am. I hit the town of Ozona and got my first Sonic Burger meal ($6), there, just before noon; it was ‘okay,’ but nothing to write home about. I think a Burger King Whopper beats the Sonic Burger, hands down. I got some more supplies ($6) from the mini-mart, and headed out of town at 12:30pm for Sonora, TX, another 30 or 40 miles up the road. The weather following me out of the northwest started to look seriously bad, with bright lightning flashes lighting up the sky, with thunder about 40 seconds away, at first. I was casting around, looking for a campsite, when I spotted this one house just a little way away from Hwy 10. There was a truck in front, so I thought I’d try this one. I knocked on the door, and introduced myself as a traveling cyclist to the fellow who answered the door, and would it be okay to lay out my sleeping gear on the lee side of his house. He was friendly and introduced himself as Trey, and said ‘no problem.’ Great! I went to the side of his house opposite the windy side, and began laying out my gear. Trey came out and offered to let me store my trike in his shed to keep the coming rain off of it, and then said I could bring my gear inside and sleep in his living room, and even take a shower if I wanted. Terrific! About a half hour after I came inside, there was only a 5 second delay between the lightning strikes and resulting thunder, and it was soon raining heavily. Trey was great – he was watching the DVD, “Nixon,” on his big screen TV, and we chatted about my trip and the storm, and stuff. I took a shower in his guest bathroom, and I tried to correct a minor problem he was having with his computer, which I wasn’t able to handle (Demitol!) We then watched a great Clint Eastwood movie I’d never seen before, “Gran Torino,” while we munched on grapefruit. Around 11pm, he went to bed and I slept on his carpeted living room floor while the storm continued to precipitate outside. I was very grateful to be clean and dry. (Hey, Trey! Please let me know the web address of your band, and I’ll provide a link to it from this blog. I thought I’d be able to find it from memory, but I should have known better.)

Day Fifty-six, 090425 - Sheffield, TX

Day Fifty-six, Date Saturday, April 25, 2009
Time in Saddle: 7:09
Distance for the Day: 62.69 miles: From east of Ft. Stockton To Picnic Area on Hwy 290 N30 40.637’ W101 40.359’
Accumulated Trip Distance: 2410.8
Altitudes: Starting/Ending 2983’/2879’, Highest: 2985’, Accumulated: 1253’
Speeds: Avg: 8.7 mph, Max: 23.6 mph
Weather: 63°
Expenditures: $2

There was some car activity on that side road, but not enough to bother me, much. I got up at 7, had M&Ms and a banana for first breakfast; I got down to 2-qts of Gatorade, but the next services were close enough to not be a worry. In fact, I seemed to be out of the dreaded “West Texas No Mans’ Lands,” and didn’t need to worry about running out of anything, anymore. How nice! The bird calls that woke me up this AM were pretty complex; lots of chirps, whistles, cheeps, craws, and various other calls – kind of like Texan mockingbirds. They were coming from these black birds with a long, shiny black tails (the Common Grackle). The weather was very balmy 63° but humid, and felt like Hawaii. My mattress must still have a very small leak, as it was somewhat deflated, but still comfortable after a night’s use – I suppose I can live with that. I checked my cell phone and saw that I got a voicemail from Walt T (in Austin), letting me know he was expecting me soon (great!) The sky was overcast, with pretty low, strato-cumulus gray clouds; a bit strange for Texas, but as long as it keeps the overall temperature low, I’m all for it; yesterday, when the sun came out, it got kinda warm. At almost 7:45 am, I got underway, and continued on down the road. Had the other half of my Subway sandwich for second breakfast at about 10 am, and stopped at a mini-mart, for drinks and supplies ($12).

At 12:25 pm, mile 2383.6, I got flat #10, my rear tire, thanks to the ubiquitous tiny steel slivers from steel-belted tire fragments off tractor trailer retreads. I continued on, and then at 2:15 pm, I got flat #11 which took about 52 minutes to fix. I replaced it with the Slime brand inner-tube that I got in El Paso. Slime tires have this green goo inside them that theoretically will fix any small punctures that may occur, automatically. I used my hand pump to fill it enough to ride on, but would need a compressor to bring it to where it should be at 70 psi. The closest town was Sheffield, so I took Exit 325 to go about five miles to get there. It was a bit of uphill work, but I made it quickly enough. Got a soda at the mini-mart ($2) and found the one working compressor in this small town to fill all three of my tires to their usual pressures, and continued on Hwy 290, the road through Sheffield, which was a loop that went from Hwy 10 to Sheffield, and then back to Hwy 10 in about another 20 miles.

Today was “Snake Day,” as I saw one 4’ long snake that had just gotten run over by a car on the road out of Sheffield. It wasn’t poisonous; I passed it by, but then turned back to put it out of its misery. By the time I got back to it, though, it was already dead. A mile or so down the road, I saw *another* shorter one, that was brick colored, and very much alive. I slowed down to take a good look at him, he saw me, and high-tailed it into the higher grass on the side of the road. Cool! The road turned out to be a tough one, rising almost a thousand feet over about 15 miles. When it came eventually got back to Hwy 10, it didn’t drop much, meaning, had I stayed on Hwy 10, it would have risen about the same amount, anyways. So, no matter which route I took, there would have been hill work. Anyways, when I reached near the top of the grade that evening, there was a nice picnic area that had potential as a camp site. I could even hang my hammock, so I stopped there, even though it was still a little early in the day, and took about 30 minutes to shave using my electric shaver that had only one working head. It was a long painful process cutting the long-ish hair that I let grow on my face (maybe 5/16” long), but got it done, with lots of pulling of short hairs (ouch!) by the semi-operational shaver. I then ate a dinner of trail mix and a banana, and hung my hammock, loaded it with the bivvy sack and mattress, but left out the sleeping bag, as it was still pretty warm, and wouldn’t need it this evening. At sunset, I hopped into my hammock, and the wind was blowing pretty good, and as the evening progressed, so did the wind. Mid-evening, a rude and possibly mildly drunk idiot behind the wheel of a 4WD truck passed by and laughed like a pirate and blew his horn to disturb my sleep, but I fooled him: I wasn’t asleep, and was well aware of his approach. A little later, he came back from the little back road that went past the picnic area, and evilly laughed more and whistled, still trying to disturb me. Twit. The wind turned ferocious, and pushed me into swinging in my hammock, which I didn’t really mind, but I didn’t seem to get one wink of sleep that night. Poop!

Day Fifty-five, 090424 - Ft. Stockton, TX

Day Fifty-five, Date Friday, April 24, 2009
Time in Saddle: 2:30
Distance for the Day: 21.56 miles: From Ft. Stockton To east of Ft. Stockton (N30 51.463’ W102 35.182’)
Accumulated Trip Distance: 2348.1 miles
Altitudes: Starting/Ending 3194’/2983’, Highest: 3194, Accumulated: 0
Speeds: Avg: 8.5 mph, Max: 19.4 mph
Weather: Clear and warm
Expenditures: $31

I slept until around noon, then found Bill who had also arisen, and we loaded my gear back into Bill’s truck so he could take me back to Ft. Stockton, where I could continue my trip. Again, this was extremely nice of Bill – I was thinking of just taking off from Ft. Davis, but it would have been a full day’s ride just to get back to Ft. Stockton before I could then continue to make forward progress, and I just really didn’t want to do that. We stopped in at a café in Ft. Davis for lunch ($19), and then made the trip to Ft. Stockton, where we then also had a delicious choco malted at Dairy Queen ($5) (I’m really hooked on them, now). He took my picture in front of the town’s fiberglass roadrunner, after which we parted company; he, going back to the TSP, and me going back to the town library to finish updating my blog. After leaving the library, it was 5:12 pm, so I found the local Subway sandwich shop and got my usual Footlong roast beef ($7), I stocked-up on Gatorade and food ($4), and took off for the next town. Didn’t get very far: 18 miles east of Ft. Stockton (not too surprising considering how late I left town). Found a stealth campsite a short distance off the main highway, behind a tree on one of the side roads. The temperature was mild, but the wind was pretty strong, and stayed that way most of the night, until around 4 or 5 am, when it died down to a light breeze. It was so strong, it blew the stealth cloth off my trike, even though I weighed and tied it down (not enough, I guess). Maybe I’ll need to use tent stakes in the future.

Day Fifty-four, 090423 - Ft. Davis, TX

Day Fifty-four, Date Thursday, April 23, 2009
Time in Saddle: n/a
Distance for the Day: n/a miles (still at the TSP)
Accumulated Trip Distance: n/a
Altitudes: Starting/Ending n/a, Highest: n/a, Accumulated: n/a
Speeds: Avg: n/a mph, Max: n/a mph
Weather: Partly cloudy with a rain shower, but clearing in the evening, and totally clear by 2am
Expenditures: $5

I woke up around 11am after staying up into the wee hours blogging, and put a third patch on my now-dry air mattress to fix that third, tiny, leak. Bill and I decided to go visit the McDonald Observatory, which was only a few miles up the road from the TSP site, Prude Ranch. We went to the visitor’s center, and Bill noticed that the description of the workings of the sundial out front was wrong! We couldn’t stay for their tour/presentations, so instead went further up the mountain to to take a peek at the actual observatories up there. We found a door to the 22-inch observatory open, so we poked our heads in, and Bill got to chatting technical stuff with one of the engineers. This progressed into a very nice mini-tour of their 22-inch and 107-inch telescopes, and insight into life on the mountain – what it takes to not only keep the telescopes maintained, but how to raise a family in such a remote location. Bill is such a handy guy! Afterwards, we went into town to get dinner at the local pizzeria ($25) where they kind of forgot us for a while, but got to us, eventually. While we were waiting, it rained, briefly, but the ClearSky Clock promised clear skies by 2am, so we were still hopeful. Back at the Ranch, darkness fell, and it was still partly cloudy, so we went to listen to a speaker on the subject of the possibility of life in the universe. His laser pointer died on him, so I let him use my 35mw green LP, and it caused quite a bit of amused “shock and awe” in the audience each time he used it, it being a bit too bright for normal presentation purposes. Afterwards, we went outside to find the sky still partly cloudy, but getting better. I went back to blogging, and Bill went out to the telescope field to begin setting up his equipment. Using David Moody’s 18” dob, Don White’s 30” dob, and Bernie’s 20” Starmaster, we looked at an entire laundry list of deep-sky objects (galaxies, nebulae [clouds in space], star clusters, and other objects. They called them, “eye candy” – the brighter, more easily seen objects. Meanwhile, others were looking for lists of objects much fainter, that were more difficult or nearly impossible to find. Oddly, we did not look at, and I didn’t think to ask to see, the planet Saturn, though it was up. These deep-sky junkies are all alike, and I’m afraid I caught that “deep-sky fervor,” myself. While we were traipsing about the universe, Bill D used his 4” refracting telescope to automatically image the Lagoon Nebula (M8). At around midnight, we went over to the concession booth to get snacks and drinks ($5), and chatted with Bill and Oscar, again, who said we’d just missed seeing the local skunk, Floyd, who came by regularly to try and get food. We were not sorry to have missed him. As near as Bill and I can recall, here’s the list of objects we saw thru the various telescopes mentioned above: M104 the Sombrero Galaxy, the two galaxy trios in Leo, Beta Centauri, Centaurus A (NGC 5128), the Markarian’s Chain and Galaxy Cluster in Virgo, Hercules globular cluster M13, Whirlpool Galaxy M51, M4, M101, Ring Nebula M57, Dumbell Nebula, M24, The Inkspot, Witches’ Broom and Waterfall in the Veil, galaxies M81 and M82, and the False Comet, which was a part of the constellation, Scorpio – you have to go further south than California (such as Texas) to see it. We stayed up all night viewing! I went to bed probably a half-hour before sunrise, while Bill stayed a bit longer to wrap up his equipment.