Day 30: April 3rd, La Grange to Richards

Somehow, we are still in Texas.

We found a lovely little coffee shop in La Grange this morning with delicious coffee and, mysteriously, free refills which we took full advantage of. It was clearly the only show in town because the joint was hopping with all sorts of locals. Among them was a guy who was super duper talkative. We learned many things about him including, but not limited to, that he was a youth minister in west Texas for a while and now has pictures of all his guns on his iPhone. Also, he said he’d been to California once and he liked it until he went to a gun shop and they wouldn’t let him even hold a gun because he didn’t have a valid state drivers license. It seemed weird to me that he would be just checking out a gun shop while on vacation but then it occurred to me that maybe people who are into guns do that, just for fun. Like how Sophie and I like to stop into local bike shops just for fun. Add it to the list of things we’ve learned on the road.

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Some Texan scenery

After our extended morning at the coffee shop we got a bit of a late start. We stopped not long after we started when we ran into the antique fair that apparently happens twice a year on the road heading into Round Top, TX. It is literally five miles of antiques. At least. It is crazy. And people really seem to get into it. They bring U-hauls to truck away all their goodies. Sophie misplaced her sunglasses this morning so we stopped when we saw a tent selling some. She picked up a pair of gangster shades and we continued on.

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The roads were lined with endless ranches

For some reason we stopped a million times today and the day seemed interminable. When we were about 11 miles out from our intended destination a truck pulled over ahead of us and the driver got out and walked over to us. He asked where we were headed and where we planned to stay. Turned out, he owned the B&Bish-type-place we were planning to stay. This place is a working cattle ranch and the owners, Ernie and Doris, have built bunkhouses so travelers can stay. They allow camping, which we had intended to do, but it seemed like it was about to rain (which it did) so we opted to stay in one of the bunkhouses. It is awesome. We have matching twin beds with Harley Davidson sheets. We also did laundry and cooked a hot meal in the kitchen. It’s almost like we’re real people! There are six other cyclists here tonight which is great.

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Head to toe in Harley gear

Maybe next time I write a post we will have somehow, some way, emerged from Texas.