Texas Hill Country Begins!

We rode by many gates leading to what appears to be lovely ranches, but you could never see the actual ranch. Apparently the ranches are miles back from the road. The entrances are often quite unique. As we get closer to Dallas territory, I'll be looking for J.R. Ewing's digs!

Miles and miles of scenes like this..the purple flower blooming is verbina. We also saw Texas blue bells and what I believe were white and yellow buttercups. Many a butterflies are flitting around...one landed on my arm and bummed a ride up a hill with me. My first thought was my load is heavy enough, I can't give you a ride...but considering he probably didn't weigh an ounce I just enjoyed the trip.

Much of our journey today looked like the hills of Wisconsin - maybe near the Mississippi River. Lots of cattle, goats and sheep grazing. We spotted one group of llamas, and horses now and then.

This Methodist church dates back to the 1800's and is situated in the town of Montell, population 12. Church is held on the 2nd and 4th Sundays of the month. One of the 12 residents was out in his yard and shared this information, offered us water from his home, which also dated back to the 1800's.

Meet Don, retired state trooper from NY. He says he has one foot in NY and one foot in Alaska, but plans on moving his whole body to Alaska. He is traveling from St. Augustine to San Diego. He carries all his gear. When we run into bikers like this we always share water, fresh fruit, and snacks from our SAG with them. Since we were traveling opposite directions, he gave us the good news that our 30 miles of head winds would end in about a mile as we make a left hand turn. YEAH!

For a moment I thought maybe I had biked all the way to the Caribbean - no wonder I was so tired and hot! However my map tells me this is the Nueces River. The few bodies of water we have seen in Texas have been a beautiful blue. As we rode over the bridge, the river called our names. The water was shallow, moving fast in some spots, but we found these rocks to rest upon while we dangled our feet in the cold water. We were quickly cooled from the 80 degree temps we had been biking in for 45 miles.

I ventured out a little ways to spend a little time in solitude. It would be great fun to sit on the rock with an evolutionist....I'd like to hear him/her explain away this beautiful creation with no Creator!

Today, Miss Kitty's wise thought is: "All great achievements require time" (David Joseph Schwartz) I found it fitting, and speaking of time, in another day or two we will be at the half way mark....unbelievable. As for today, I'm resting my head in Foot Wood, Texas. Small little town where the shops are closed on Tuesdays. However, we found one shop open and it featured the most delightful mohair designer made clothes. I was very, very tempted, but instead I went down to the ice cream shop to have a brownie mud slide - GOOD choice!

Tomorrow will take us a short distance, but miles of high climbs, to the remote town of Vanderpool where we stay in cabins. Probably no cell or Internet service.

(Be sure to read yesterday's post which was just posted today....again no Internet last night. I guess Texas is so big and wide the Internet lines can cover the whole state.

Be back at ya soon!