Texas Winter Trip - Boerne

Tuesday, January 24.
We reluctantly left Austin knowing full well that we are headed to the Red-State part of Texas, which is probably everywhere except Austin. Good food would become a rarity from this point forward, for starters.

Today's ride is from Boerne, a charming little town that is NW of San Antonio. Today's ride is a 66 mile ride that goes to Luckenbach, and this is another ride that we have done in the past. This route has both the best and a little of the worst riding that we've done in Texas. The ride back from Luckenbach goes via Old San Antonio Road and Old Number 9, and it is some of the best cycling that I have encountered out here. Unfortunately, we had to use Highway 87 to get to Boerne. One mile-long segment of Hwy 87 is narrow, busy and fast. The traffic is managed by a traffic light and, if you hit it wrong, you can get a pack of cars to deal with. This was our case. A 4x4 board fell off of a passing truck and slid past us at about 30 mph. Fortunately it didn't flip or it could have been serious trouble. We'll do this route again but we'll need to avoid Highway 87 next time.

The ride started at Britton's Bike Shop, where the shop manager let us park. We stopped by later and bought a pair of gloves and some socks. Post ride dinner was at the Dodging Duck, a Brew Pub on River Drive. Not bad, although its on a lower plane that what we have become accustomed to.

Highlight of the day was seeing an armadillo very close up. He was busy on the side of the road plucking away in the grass and didn't mind that we were circling and taking photos. Perfect weather today... about 70 degrees and sunny.

After the ride we drove to Utopia and McFadin's ranch house, where we are staying for the next two days.