Exhausted from yesterday’s marathon struggle against wind and terrain, we were perfectly willing to be good humored about the long slow process of breakfast cooked and served by the hotel staff of 2, one meal at a time at five minute intervals. We sat and watched the news on CNN, drank coffee and relived horror stories from yesterday. Yesterday’s heroes along with the SAG and van driver were all roundly applauded and there were many concerned questions about "broken vaginas", road rash, sunburn and a possibly badly infected cut from 10 days ago. This is a concern because the rider is the other diabetic on the trip although she is not insulin dependent, she still is extremely cautious and the cuts were nasty.
Finally, all fed, we headed out into sunshine. No butt crack of dawn today, but the full sunshine of a 9:00 start, knowing that today’s ride was going to feel like a rolling recovery ride with only 42 miles to ride.
We passed a herd of horses out in the range land fairly early on and they all seemed interested in coming to the fence to watch us pass by although they shied back if we got too near. We also saw quite a few more grazing cattle than we have seen in quite a while. The range land is more the type of terrain I am used to seeing, sage, scrub bushes, juniper and chamisa instead of endless miles of dry grass with just an occasional juniper tree. There was still a headwind but it remained in the 15-20 mile per hour range and was kind enough to stay blowing consistently from one direction rather than jumping around and side gusting so it was quite rideable.
At 10 miles we detoured into the town of Del Rio to check out Lakeside Sports, the local bike shop . Things looked hopeful as it actually had a couple of bikes up on the roof. When we went in, we were amused to see that it was a bicycle, motorcycle, skateboard and marble countertop store. We availed ourselves of their flush toilet, and would have bought something to say thank you except that they had nothing to buy except some children’s clothing and one pair of men’s biking socks. Obviously in spite of all of the biking and competition pictures, plastered on the bathroom walls, biking is not their forte.
Back on the road it was an almost bucolic ride to the 20 miles SAG. The hills were gentle, the wind was not too irritating and we are in a lower greener belt with lots of blooming desert acacia, cottonwoods, and mesquite along with the sage, chimisa and juniper. The only think that was really bad was the continual chip seal paving. Up until mile 19 we had had a relatively smooth black top, but as soon as we passed into Kinney County, just after the SAG stop, the paving disappeared and was replaced with chip seal surface.
I have ridden on a variety of chip seal surfaces and I have to admit that this west Texas stuff is some of the worst I have ridden on. They seem to have deliberately chosen a very coarse gravel, with rocks about the size of fingernails and the bare minimum of tar to hold the stuff in place so the result is that we are constantly riding on a bed of anchored coarse gravel which makes it dangerous to ride with you mouth closed for fear of shattering teeth or biting through your tongue.
We crossed over a number of stream beds most of which were dry except for big perdido creek which was running clear over the rocks and into a lovely little sylvan pool just off the road. There were hundreds of swallows swooping and swerving above us as we crossed the bridge and stopped to take pictures.
The ride itself was uneventful, a nice Sunday ride on a Monday. The traffic was light and pretty much well behave and considerate. Of course by this time we have all realized that the road surface isn’t any better than the shoulder and sometimes even worse, and that by riding single file and widely separated, we make less of a target to aim at. Nobody was in a hurry to get to Bracketvillle since we knew we wouldn’t be able to check in at Fort Clark Springs until afternoon.
There were no services but nobody was particularly worried since it was such a short ride.
We are staying on the grounds of a registered National Historical Site, Fort Clark , a former US Cavalry post that housed the last mounted cavalry regiment until 1952. Founded in 1852, it was also an instrumental site during the Wars against the Indians, the Mexican American War, and the efforts to control Pancho Villa and other Mexican marauders in the 1920s. The buildings are all out of native limestone, a soft creamy yellow and tan, and grouped in the traditional cavalry fort style around a central parade ground, which now that it is a gated community, has been turned into a 3 hole par 3 golf course.
We are staying in one of the old barrack buildings, with 10 rooms down and 10 rooms up all opening out onto a common porch or balcony on the front facing the parade grounds. These were not the enlisted men’s barracks, but the lower ranking officers who each had a room to themselves. The motel’s main building is obviously the general’s quarters, a gracious house with a rose garden and gazebo behind overlooking the springs. The rooms have all be modernized but the furniture is all reminiscent of generic Texas Republic wood furniture, plain, serviceable, local wood and emblazoned with a lone star wherever there is space. In many of the barrack building, rooms have been put together to make private condominiums, and one barrack has been converted to rental apartments , all of which has been done without altering the exterior of the buildings. At the entrance there is a statue of a horse with an empty saddle, the traditional salute to a fallen cavalryman. The statue is surrounded by the battalion pennants of each cavalry division or regiment which served here, It is all very lovely and peaceful and we are truly lucky to be able to have a short enough day that we are all fresh enough to walk around and savor the atmosphere.
The best part of the place is a large natural spring which flows through a 200’ by 300’ swimming pool and then flows on down through the fort as a stream. The water is a constant 62 degrees all year around and even in the stream bed and in the spring pool is incredibly clear. The swimming pool is surrounded by picnic areas and tall trees making it a perfect place to swim and recover after several days of increasing challenging riding. We were all glad to don our bathing suits and plunge or ease into the water, to exercise a different set of muscles, and to let the cool water ease our sunburns, which in spite of repeated slatherings of sunscreen seem to get redder every day.
Tomorrow we ride to Camp Wood , another easy under 50 miles with the weather predicted to be in the mid 70’s and sunny. So it should be another good recovery day, except for the chip seal. The humidity has gone up from 14% to about 34 % and was noticeable in the heat of the afternoon. I keep warning the ladies that they will begin to miss the headwinds or any breeze as the humidity increases . We are entering the edges of the hill country and although tomorrow looks much like today, flat and gentle rollers, the two days after look like an echo cardiogram pattern or a tight sine wave. I’ve given up watching the local channels for wind predictions as they can’t predict them any better than any other local weatherman, since they persist in reading the charts instead of just looking outside and observing the flag, which is usually in blatant contradiction of whatever it is they are predicting.
today's stats
miles ridden 42.8
3:36 riding time
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