Day 9. 55mi 1991 elev. AIS 5:28. 10.0 mph
We were out of Austin early today, 7:40am. Overcast but warm morning , 85% humidity. As I stated earlier, Austin’s bike trails and bike paths along major roads is impressive. We scooted right along and we’re out of the metro area within an hour.
Passed a circuit speedway. From the sound of it one can test out driving race cars. Couldn’t see them but heard them for a ways. Shortly after that we were on back country roads. At this point dogs began to appear. Loose dogs. Coming out of yards, squeezing through fences. Curt seemed to catch their attention and require bark and chase! Most were benign but there was one diligent St.Bernard. Mind you, Curt is pedaling with most of his body right at an average dogs bark and/or bite! So with Mr St Bernard he deployed his pepper spray. Trick was the dog cut around behind him and approached on his left. So Curt sprayed under his left arm and also sprayed his arm a bit.
Good news, the dog backed off, bad news… after a time delay his arm started to react to the dose of pepper spray on his shirt sleeve. Big sting for quite awhile. Washed his shirt and changed shirts at our lunch stop. After more than an hour it subsided. All is well now.
For the first time ever I decided to try my IPhone earbuds when we were on a busy road with a huge shoulder (12’). I have to say I really enjoyed drowning out the traffic with some good music! This was going great until suddenly the music stopped. It took me a while to realize that meant that I’d dropped an earbud. Uh oh😱. Those things are expensive. We had just climbed a sizable hill when I noticed. If took me 3 tries riding down and back up before I finally found it…near the top of course. They look remarkably similar to a cigarette butt🤣
Next we left the main road to ride through Bastrop State Park and Buescher State park. The road was quiet, almost zero cars but back to ups and downs with a few steep hills. A few walks for all of us. Camped at Buescher State park. Home to Loblolly pines, oak trees and plentiful wild flowers. Also only one other camper besides us. No outdoor lights, no generators. Sleep well tonight.
Big day tomorrow. 65 miles or so. Should be a bit less climbing j think.
cinnicrew 
AMAZING! Love the flowers!
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My guess is there is no shortage of cigarette butts in Texas along the highways.
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You must know by now that while you were riding out of Austin in warm humidity, Billings natives were dealing with the aftermath of “Snowmageddon”, a blizzard which left 12 inches of snow in 12 hours. Some heavy lifting with snow shovels in there.
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