Miles Today: 71.98; Total Miles: 1466.3
Today I rode with Kevin whom I met in the RV Park on Day 20 (see blog). As I was finishing up my blog that day, Kevin asked me if I wanted to ride with him the next day. I thought it would be fun and accepted.
We started out our ride in a strong headwind...man, that tires you out quickly. Kevin was a more experienced biker than me (with thousands of miles on his bike) and his pace was a little faster. He is also doing this trip across the country along with his wife who is following him in a camper and is taking all of his equipment with her so Kevin is only carrying a light load. I, on the other hand, am carrying about 45-50 lbs of weight with me so I had a hard time keeping up with him.
I had some trouble today with my rack on the back of the bike. Apparently, the garbage can that I am carrying with all of my camping equipment and clothes is causing the rack to periodically break bolts. The weight distribution of the garbage can design is causing too high of a center of gravity and is causing the rack to sway back and forth from side to side. This stressed the brackets that were holding the rack and caused bolts to break and a bracket to snap today. I did the best I could to splint the break with a tire lever and duct tape it together. This fixed the problem for today but is not the best solution. I was worried about it the rest of the day but did not have any further problems. All I was thinking was, "I hope this holds because if it doesn't I will be out here with no way to get my stuff to my next destination."
That day was the start of the Texas Hill Country and was filled with beautiful sites and a whole lot of hills. Unfortunately, because of my problems with the bike I was more worried about the bike and I missed a lot of the sites. The most exciting thing that happened today was that I was hissed at by a live armadillo. At first I thought it was a rattle snake but was pleasantly surprised when I saw him. Kevin stopped and took his picture.
When I finally arrived in Leakey I got a room at the motel and had a wonderful dinner at the attached restaurant. This town had such a nice family atmosphere that I calmed down and really enjoyed my night there.
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