Blog 4/6/10-- A Little More Philosophy

From brother in law Don's computer tonight, at his place in Austin.  We had a pretty easy day today, a recovery day by cross-country standards.  Not quite 60 miles from Blanco to Austin.  Hilly, but not as hilly, and about a third of the ride was tailwind, big tailwind.  We're at 1683 miles now, and just got back from a little driving tour of downtown Austin with Don and his wife, Dee.  Gorgeous state capital building, and 6th Street is a hoot.

Relative to yesterday's blog about whether we're having fun and whether the trip is harder than I thought, I have a few things to add.  Every morning is fun.  There hasn't been a day when I dreaded getting on the bike (though there have been a few climbs I've dreaded facing).   We're fresh first thing in the day, even if it does take a while for our legs to wake up sometimes.  We've had great weather, so early in the day it's cool and the wind is generally light.  Every evening, we reflect on a great day of riding and get to bask in our accomplishments and talk about all we've seen.  Every single mile we ride is brand new and often full of natural beauty and surprises.  As bikers who have ridden several different routes around our home town dozens or hundreds of times, and even the DALMAC quad century I ride so often I don't need the map, the fun of having each and every day be all new is hard to overstate.  And don't forget that we never have to cook, never do dishes, never have to take out the trash, shovel snow or mow the lawn. 

Weigh all those positives against the negative of some hard miles, some hot weather, some headwind, and the balance obviously tips heavily toward the fin side.  Really the only time that's hard is some of the afternoons--when we've already spent 6 hours on the bike and aren't there yet; when we've done 80 miles and still have 20 more to go. Well, we've ridden thousands and thousands of miles together and we know we can do those last 20 miles, too.

It's amazing to see how much the country has changed in the last two days, from total desert to very, very green spring--trees in full bloom, millions of Texas blue bonnets lining the roads and filling the fields, and lots of other flowers too.  We've come down several thousands and feet in altitude, and also being closer to the Gulf of Mexico both seem to result in vastly increased humidity.  We're done with real climbing now, though we have a few more hills.  We hope to be done with this huge state in three more days and see what Louisiana has to offer.