Kerrville to Blanco, Texas

We left the hotel with the trophy animals hanging all over the lobby at around 8:00 in the morning. The skies were grey and it looked like rain, but we were told that it hasn't rained in this part of Texas for 13 months! Today we were on back country roads that meandered by a river for a while with shady lined trees, past smaller ranches and open fields and up and over some smaller hills. We did see some beautiful horses, and further down a road, a dozen deer over in a meadow . We often pass some areas where the wire fence is quite high, as they have hunters come in to hunt for various game. It doesn't seem quite fair to me but we are in Texas and life is different here.

We stopped in a town called Comfort, Texas.this morning The old district looked like it was slowly being restored, so they had the old storefronts, banks, and saloons from years ago. We went into an old fire station that had been refurbished into an upscale coffee shop and bistro. We sat outside with our drinks and orange almond muffin or chocolate covered macaroons enjoying the flower covered trellis and blooming herbs that were in large feeding troughs. We thought it would be pretty cool sounding to say I live in “Comfort.”:)

We went by many more ranches that had for sale signs on them. It''s been rather depressing over the past few weeks to see this. Our mileage was 64.8 today. I was pretty tired probably because of the heat.The clouds disappeared midday and it warmed right up to 79 or 80 degrees with a little humidity.Part way on my ride I kept hearing a creaking sound that I had not heard in my bike before. I finally determined it was coming from my saddle. Someone thinks that the carbon may be starting to break and it will have to be replaced. I looked at it tonight in my room and couldn't see any tiny cracks but maybe in daylight would reveal something.d

At dinner we had several guests of riders join us for dinner. Tonight we celebrated Donna's 63^rd birthday with polenta, sausage ragou, salad, cantaloupe and gluten free chocolate cake. I opted for more polenta and ragou for my dessert instead. We alsohad a margarita to celebrate making it ½ way to Floriday We also had to say goodbye to our wonderful guide/mechanic Michelle, who had signed on for ½ of the trip. .She is heading back to her home in Colorado. I hope that our paths will meet again. She is really talented and we will miss her understatements at our nightly map meetings. “You might have a hill or two...”ttranslated means, 10 or 12 with steep inclines!

Tomorrow we have another 90 something mile day ahead of us. I'll post this when we get to a place that has access to internet.

Hugs,

Robin