Day 23: Washington, TX to La Grange, TX

Daily Miles: 59.9 Total Miles: 1265.5

Texas blue bonnets. Beautiful!

Today was a hard day, both mentally and physically. Both yesterday and today I climbed over 1500 feet and today the climbs and the awful road conditions really took their toll on me. Before I get into the description of the ride, I want to explain a bit about Texas roads. A large percentage of them are covered with a material that I have heard called, "chip seal." As far as I can tell, to make chip seal they coarsely grind up a bunch of gravel, larger rocks, glass, dead armadillos, old Dallas Cowboys memorabilia, and anything else they can get their hands

Staving off a nervous breakdown at lunch

on. Then they mix the material with tar and finally spread this extremely bumpy mixture over the roads. Over time the chip seal starts to break apart, wear down, etc. And then they just pour more fresh chip seal on top of it. To get an idea of what it's like to ride on, first picture what it's like to ride over a rumble strip in your car. Unpleasant, isn't it. Then try to imagine what it would be like to just ride, all day, for hours, on that rumble strip. Now imagine you're doing that on a bike while trying not to get run over by the speeding motorists, because every single road in Texas, even if it has no shoulder, has a minimum speed limit of 60 MPH. It is extremely STRESSFUL and uncomfortable.

Antiques? In the eye of the beholder...

Ok, now for the ride: I started out in Washington, climbing and climbing and in about 5 miles made it to the intersection with Rt. 105. The ACA map called for me to double back a mile to get on an unsigned country road, but I saw plenty of cyclists riding down 105 and decided that I didn't want to double back. I was also hoping that the road conditions on 105 would be better than the country road I was on. I headed out and the road was somewhat better, but still awful. I continued on to Brenham, about 18 miles into the day, and knew that I needed to get on US 290 West to continue on to Burton to meet up with the ACA route.

Antiques as far as the eye can see... 

Like a fool, I followed a sign that said, "Turn left for US 290 Junction." I went about 3 miles before stopping to check my phone, only to realize I was going ~8 miles out of my way and had to sort of double back to get back on the direct route to 290. Grrrr. I finally got back on track and met up with mom to have some food. I was really feeling out of it, my legs were super tired from all the climbing, and my nerves were frayed from the constant jostling of the road. After the snack I felt better and pushed on 20 more miles to Round Top. After getting off of 290 the stress level once again went through the roof because there was virtually no shoulder and an insane amount of traffic on this small country road. Where the heck are all of these people going? As I neared Round Top, I figured it out: they were going antiquing. Apparently the 15 mile stretch of Texas Farm Road 237 from Round Top to Oldenburg is the antiques capital of Texas and these three weeks, from now until the first week of April are peak antiquing season. Good. Lord. This was the last thing I needed. The road was completely terrible. The tiny shoulder sloped down, so the one time I got on it I nearly lost control and came within a millimeter of sliding off the road. Finally, I made it in to Round Top and met Mary for a very good late lunch at a Mexican place. Now that I am done riding and still alive, I have to give props to Round Top and its equally tiny antique-friendly sister cities. One of my favorite quotes is, "Do what you can, with what you have, where you are." I have never seen a better example of this philosophy than what these tiny towns have done. They are doing quite a bit, attracting hundreds of vendors and thousands (if not tens of thousands) of customers, with what they have (absolutely nothing, but land and in the case of Round Top 93 inhabitants), where they are (in the MIDDLE OF NOWHERE). Well done. I can give credit where credit is due. Originally, I had planned on doing ~72 miles today to set up a short day tomorrow, but once I made it to lunch, I knew I would be stopping my day at 60 miles in La Grange. I got back on the road, and within 8 miles the road surface improved dramatically, and I was pretty much able to coast in to La Grange. It was still after 5pm when we got in, and we're staying the night in a local hotel right on the route. I'm hoping to get an early start tomorrow, so that I can finish up early and we can spend the afternoon in Austin. Wish us luck!