Although there are various ways that Texas is divided from a tourist perspective, for us there were three main sections. The east, until Austin, the Hill Country until Uvalde, and the West.

The east remains as something of an extension of Louisiana. There were still passing references to Cajun culture and to Mardi Gras, and the landscape was still that of tall pine forests. Less pleasing was a continuing but decreasing incidence of dog chases. One of our primary recollections is of the birds, seranading us all along the road. This was a beautiful area of very gentle hills, and a mixture of giant houses of the very wealthy with humble places.

Austin stands at the boundary of the east and the hills. It's most striking feature to us was the skyline and the relative lack of traffic and elevated expressways. However, when we we there anyway, the storied downtown hip area did not look like much.

The Hill Country is undoubedly beautiful, and the rolling hills themselves exciting, if you like hills. However this was mainly a region of large fenced off ranches, and there was precious little for the tourist. That is, aside from one olive farm and a map we got showing the location of various vineyards, but these were not on the ACA route. There were not nooks with art galleries and cafes, nor obvious spots for wine tasting, nor the growing of any other produce. We slowly came to realize that the fenced ranches were mainly selling hunting experiences where the targets were enclosed range animals. We were not impressed by that.

The west featured the dramatic desert with its fascinating geology and plants.This is the focus of the Big Bend National Park, south of our route and we enjoyed reading park interpretative materials and seeing the many books written about the natural and human history of the place. However, the distances between services became extreme from our point of view, and we not only felt we needed to fashion a sign that said HELP! but did actually have to phone for help east of Sanderson. The places where you can wild camp are almost nil, because of rocks and thorns, fences and other impediments. We were lucky to find widely scattered picnic sites that were good for camping, otherwise there would have been no way for us to cross this.

TEXAS PROS

Friendly people
Interesting landscapes
Smaller than Ontario
Bird song
Way fewer dog chases than Louisiana
Interesting types of cattle
Litter free roadsides in some places

TEXAS CONS

No camping
Hills
Wind
Distances a challenge for our abilities
As always in USA, poor food
No cycling culture
Chipseal road surfaces