Day 53: Bastrop to Austin: Thanks, Susan and Ardell!

February 26, 2014

Yesterday's forecast, that gave a 90% chance of rain today had been softened by this morning, so that now the chance was only 70%. Balancing that, though, was the change from "rain" to "ice pellets". Naturally, we put on all our gear, including the warm gloves. So many times now I have buried these gloves at the bottom of the pack, thinking "well that's the end of freezing on this trip". Hah.

As soon as we stepped outside we were literally blown over by one factor we had sort of missed in the forecast. Wind. There was a brisk, or really brisk North wind.

Although we know that the car is king in the US, sometimes there are reasonable ways for a cyclist to get through and around a town. But you have to watch out. A US town is prone to suddenly confront you with a maze of elevated roads, on and off ramps, and such like. Bastrop"s trick is to have all kinds of divided highways running side by side, creating a high speed asphalt expanse whose width, let alone length, could make a respectable road.

No matter, we have the ACA route as a track to follow on our GPS, right? Not quite. The ACA track has two slight but potentially "deadly" weaknesses. First, the waypoints are only established at turns in the route. That means that the track line you see is not "snapped to the road" but often charges off in a straight line towards the next waypoint. If there are many roads in the vicinity, it's hard to see which you should be on. Second, though there is a little help for Westbound cyclists on the Southern Tier, the ACA main orientation is Eastbound. With the .gpx track, that means you can be sent the wrong way on a divided road - trying to go the wrong way (West) on a one way Eastbound lane.

No, ACA, no matter what your track says we are not going up here!

The roads near Bastrop. Note that any car that wants to sideswipe Dodie has to hit the Flag!

These problems are not really that bad, especially if you are thinking about them in a warm, quiet office, looking at the map on a big screen. But out on the road, with traffic whizzing around and your hands frozen, looking at the little screen in the rain, one could wish for a little more refinement!

No matter, the route soon has you leaving the big roads, to commence an intricate noodling around on little roads. Just as happened yesterday, we did this for a while. That is, until it became clear we were never going to get anywhere this way. It's not just a question of whether one prefers scenic little indirect roads to big, noisy, direct roads. Today we had wind driven ice rain to deal with. Those scenic little roads have no services and no shelter.

A really pretty cow or steer, Near Bastrop

There were actually four horses tracking us, but one wandered off while I got out the camera

Here is an attractive desert type succulent. The land is getting drier as we head west. We learned yesterday that the Lost Pines are a sub species that can handle the drier soil.

Much more cactus growing wild here than further east

So again, we bailed out, back onto State Road 71. The first thing 71 did for us was to have a gas station, for a quick break. In the parking lot we talked to a Sheriff, who warned that there was constuction on the road closer into Austin, and we should be careful. OK, back out there.

For the next 10 km or so we plodded along, in the blasting wind and rain. The temperature was 3 on my bike computer, but later (see below) we got another reading, of .5 (33 degrees F). Quite quickly, since circulation in my hands is weak, I had them in fists inside the gloves. On other cold days, I would be putting first one hand then the other onto bare skin under my jacket. But with the rain, once the glove would come off and the hand get wet, the glove would not go back on again.

On downhills, I was falling behind Dodie. She reports now that she thought I was being nicely cautious, using the brakes. In fact, my hands had stopped moving, so I could not shift to a higher gear. In compensation, neither did I have any ability to use the brakes!

Here is where being on 71 helped out. We eventually came to a tall and large scrolling sign advertising a pecan orchard farm store. Pecan pie, chocolate covered pecans, pecan pralines, etc. etc.! And more to the point, someplace warm and dry.

We pulled in, and I went to the restroom. What do people do in restrooms? Wrong. .. and not that either! No, the restroom has the hot air hand dryer. Normally these are useless for drying hands. But they are great for getting them moving again!

We bought some pecan praline, and a pecan covered nougat log. Mainly we were looking for sugar content. We could burn sugar to get us further down the road. Aside from the items with most sugar content, we did note that this was the first farm store we had hit since oranges in Florida, and that there was a reasonably large pecan orchard here, behind the store. But really, we were most interested in calories, calories of heat!

At the pecan shop, there shtick is a giant squirrel out front. They encourage customers to send in Squirrel photos

When we took the road again, we immediately spotted a McDonald's golden arch coming up. Dodie proposed that we should stop and eat some fries or something, to counterbalance the sugar with fat, and avoid any possible spike and crash blood sugar effect.

As it happens, we did not have to implemnent this. A pickup towing a large trailer - meant for something like a small tractor - pulled over, and Susan stepped out into the rain, and walked back to us. "I have been treated so kindly by strangers while travelling", she said, "would you like a lift to Austin". I have heard this before, but I know that the Grampies (Dodie) never, ever, quit. "Yes!" she said "That would be great!". Susan later mentioned that she saw my surprise to hear this. But Dodie has great instincts, and from the truck we could see not only how far in the rain the remaining distance seemed to be, but how the road became unsafe at points - with the shoulder disappearing. Meanwhile, the external temperature reading shown in Susan's truck was 33 degrees. Particularly in the construction, it really was not safely passable for a cycle. We would have arrived at the dangerous spots totally frozen, and then be forced to scout for a safe way.

Susan dropped us a the front door of the Airport Super 8, where we had made a reservation the evening before. Needless to say a lot of thank yous and hugs were exchanged, before Susan expertly backed the rig out.

Inside the Super 8, the rather cool and unwelcoming desk person denied having our reservation, and presented with the confirmation number, asserted that it was for yesterday. Quick thinking Dodie pointed out that we had only phoned yesterday evening. And in fact our confirmation email was from 7 p.m. Touche!

When we had phoned it was explained that they only had a "suite" available. As to what was meant by a suite, they said a suite has a sofa. And anyway, they said, it only costs $2 more. Hmmm. Well we paid pretty much the basic room rate, $91, but the suite had more than a sofa. It has its own computer (with a REAL KEYBOARD), a full sized stove and refrigerator, double sink, even a phone in the bathroom. and a scale! We stepped on the scale, and it did not seem to register those pralines. Great!

Wow, talk about going from the depths of despair to the heights of having two sinks and a diplomatic scale!

Ardell is coming over to play with us soon, too.

Ardell came bearing two boxes. The first contained a dramatic demonstration that true French baking can be found in Texas. For in the box were croissants and pains aux chocolat that easily could have come from Paris or Nantes. The second box contained the new wheel and tire. Even though we of course knew Ardell had had it for some time, and even though Ardell's wheel has been serving perfectly well since Eunice, it sure was great to see it.

Ardell was not done being a treasure, for she had researched what might be a good restaurant here in South Austin, and came up with Hill's Cafe. Hill's is on Congress St. which we understand is a main road, running to the capitol. It was opened in 1947 by the family of the man who invented the "chuckwagon" in the 1850's.

Hill's is a music venue too, and has lots of memorabilia, both from the history of Austin and from entertainers. Most important, to me, was the authenticity of the food. I ordered the BBQ plate, which was BBQ brisket and sausage. The brisket had the red stripe that develops in meat when cooked by smoking, and the sausage was just sheer BBQ yummy.

Naturally we talked with Ardell about many subjects. Since we are all Grampies and since Ardell is also a Grade 3 teacher, we shared our affection for Moe Willem's Pigeon stories, for Frog and Toad, and for books by Roald Dahl. Even more, though, we talked about our favorite authors on Crazyguy (this blog site). We mused on how frustrating it is (for us) if somebody quits, or even finishes their tour normally. You get so attached to following them!

With our damaged rim now placed in the box the new one came in, Ardell undertook to mail it to our bike shop in Canada, for rebuilding. We really don't have to write how nice that is, because it is so clear. It just makes us want to go out and find some other cyclist that we can help, and in so doing pay it back, or forward, or whatever!

If you can read this, it's the story of Hill's, starting in 1857!

BBQ brisket and sausage. Note that red smoke line in the brisket.

Today's ride: 27 km (17 miles)
Total: 3,136 km (1,947 miles)

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