What a difference a day makes

Today was a short ride (41 miles) from Bastrop to La Grange, TX.  We started out through Bastrop State Park and if you are ever in this area, I recommend it highly.  Two years ago there was a storm ignited fire and a lot of trees are dead, but the areas that were not affected let you see what it was like before.  They are removing dead trees and have planted a lot of pine seedlings.   I would love to see it 30 years from now - it will be perfect again.

Much of the ride was on bike paths or country/park roads with very little traffic.  There were hills involved.  I climbed everything up to 10% in my granny gears (thanks Chris) but walked up several that ranged from `2-17% grade.  As you could probably guess, that meant that there were a lot of fun downhills too.  The weather was cool and cloudy all day with high humidity, which really feels good after 4 weeks of the desert.  And of course, we got our usual daily dose of "invisible hills" (wind) but it was mostly tolerable.

The road surfaces varied from fair to excellent except for one stretch of US77 that is evidently "maintained" by the Texas DOT.  It was a medium grade of chipseal with a two foot shoulder..........18 inches of which was rumble strip.  It was gusting a bit at that point and traffic was getting heavier so I walked the half mile or so until we got back to normal federal highway shoulders.

Flo is one of our riders and she lives in the Houston area.  Her regular masseuse came up to give her a mid-trip massage and brought 4 other massage artists with her so the rest of us could get one too.  I had a foot massage and my feet feel like gummi bears right now.  

Tomorrow we go to Navasota, where we will have a rest day.  I plan to spend some time inhaling yarn fumes at W.C. Mercantile, a well known fiber shop.  There may be some damage to the credit card.

I didn't get pictures today because my camera isn't polite enough to tell me when the battery is low, it just surprises me.  But Dolly, of course, has lots.  You can see them at www.dollybikeusa.wordpress.com