Day 31: April 4, Richards to Shephard
During the night in Richards there was a big lightning storm and a ton of rain, so we were relieved to see that it had stopped by the time we were up and ready to go. We stopped at the one place in town for breakfast, since we had aspirations of going 90 miles and knew that a good breakfast would help us accomplish that. We walked in and a young guy fully clad in camouflage asked us before we sat down “Y’all know what you want?” Not being regulars we did not, but it was nice to be mistaken for one anyways.
Soon thereafter we headed out, but something wasn’t sitting right with me and I wound up spending the day good and nauseous and therefore slowed us down a good bit. It wasn’t until later that day when we realized that the local water back in Richards was loaded with sulfur, including the cups of coffee I drank (whoops). We finished up Texas’s rolling hills and enjoyed the fact that they were flattening out, but because of my sulfur plague we only made it 60 miles, to just beyond Shepherd, TX. We rolled into the Shepherd Sanctuary campgrounds to find an eclectic series of cabins that looked straight out of Alice and Wonderland, a fire pit, and a dry place to camp. It was run by a woman named Peach, who was hosting her 30 year high school reunion (class size: 18 students) from the next town over, and was a rare liberal-minded, liberal politics gem who proceeded to feed us delicious soup with homegrown kale and a blackberry tart. We spent the evening chatting with her as well as three other cyclists, which is always a good opportunity to share battle stories.