Day 24: La Grange, TX to Lockhart, TX

Daily Miles: 61.7 Total Miles: 1327.2

UT-Austin campus

Today was another day of climbs, but the roads were much better and I really enjoyed the ride! Staying in a hotel right on the route worked out really nicely and I hit the road at around 8:30am, about an hour and a half earlier than the last few days. I am not blaming our late starts on Mary, but I will say that when I left this morning she said, "I'm going to get ready and I'll see you in about an hour." Well, 3.5 hours later... she finally caught up with me. The day started with a very thick fog and I decided to veer off the ACA route again in search of better roads. Instead of taking small country roads for 40+ miles to Bastrop, I opted for the direct 35 mile route on State Road 71, a busier road with a huge shoulder protected by a rumble strip. The first 6 miles on this route were on a terrible chip seal shoulder, but after making it through that it was the smoothest sailing on to Bastrop.

Mary in front of the Texas Capitol building

I knocked out the first 37 miles of the day, and stopped for a rest and snack and to wait for Mary. It was almost noon when I stopped and it was the first time the sun broke through the fog. It did not take long to heat up. I rode the last 25 miles on to Lockhart on considerably worse roads, and in considerable heat, but made it in just fine. After finishing up the ride around 2:30pm, I quickly showered and then Mary and I drove the 30 miles in to Austin. We had a nice time walking around town, checking out the State Capitol building, walking around the UT Austin campus, and enjoying ice-cold bubble teas.

Who could resist eating at the BBQ Capital of TX? 

It was fun to check out the city, but we decided to head back to Lockhart for dinner, since we learned that Lockhart is the BBQ Capital of Texas! We ate dinner at Black's BBQ, and it was delicious!! If you're interested, you can find them online, and they ship anywhere in the US. After dinner, we saw a strange sculpture of a fish, and Mary took it upon herself to get into the fish's mouth for a photo. As she was trying to get out a man came out of the building and told us he was a preacher there and wanted to know if we were photographing his fish.

Mary says this fish is nicer than some hotels we've stayed in

We thought we were in trouble, but it turns out that they're collecting photos of people with the fish, so we're going to send him Mary's pic. Once again I climbed over 1500' today, making my 3 day climb total about 4600'. After all of this climbing I am currently sitting in Lockhart, Texas, at an elevation of 534'. This means that for all the climbing I have done, I've also done a lot of descending. Well, tomorrow I will finish the day in Blanco, TX which sits at about 1700'. I am pretty nervous because if the roads stay the way they have been tomorrow will feature a brutal amount of climbing over a fairly short 62 miles. I'm hoping for a nice gentle 1% grade all the way from here to Blanco with no headwind. But I don't think I'll be so lucky. The good news is that after tomorrow's ride, Mary and I are heading down to San Antonio for a rest day. We're going to be staying two nights near downtown and are looking forward to visiting the Alamo, enjoying the Riverwalk, and we might even sneak in a trip to the movies. After all of this climbing, my legs (and the rest of me) are really ready for the rest!