Day 6 of 17 Days of Texas. Got started riding about 8 a.m., rode around the town of Fort Davis, pretty, interesting buildings to look at. Then it was down the road to checkpoint in Alpine “In the Heart of the Texas Alps.” I rode around Alpine for awhile too, but finally stopped in at checkpoint, the parking lot of a grocery store. Found some snacks and settled in for a hour. Outside of town was a museum that Sig and I stopped at, not a great museum, but it had the sweetest old lady there. She was trying to help me make my purchases, I had this bowl of what they call ‘worry stones’ poured out on the counter trying to find the best one, she looks over and says “how many worries you got girl?” Sig and I were bantering back and forth, she was trying, but unsuccessfully to follow what we were talking about. Finally Sig gets his stuff and heads for the door, she gets all distressed about this and says “you leavin’ her?” Sig says “oh yeah, she’ll catch up,” she was clearly horrified by the thought of this man just leavin’ his woman behind – and on bicycles! She had a terrible time trying to ring me out, she’s upset by this episode and then says “I can hardly wait to have my cataract surgery so I can see” I had to help her find the right codes for my purchases and then find the numbers on the computer keyboard so she could peck them in – I’m sure we made her day.
Good riding for the rest of the day. We’re camped on the football field of a high school, unable to go in and take showers until school lets out, most of us went into town to get something to drink at a real authentic soda fountain. It had a wonderful porch to lounge on and watch the last of the riders come into town. There also was this wall of cow skulls that I thought was very cool, we all had to line up for photos. After showers and pitching our tents for the night it was time to again walk the 3 blocks into town for happy hour. As Keri, Bob, Sig and I were having our Texas wine and beers we were joined by many others in the group. We walked by the nice looking and world famous Gage Hotel, where some of our non-campers stayed, on our way to a rather awful meal of chicken fried steak. Back to our happy hour place for an after dinner drink and then to our tents.
65.0 miles