Rapidly descending to the Gulf Coast

Day 13. Shepherd to Silsbee TX. 60.5 mi. 5:12 hrs. 564 ft elev. 11.6 mph. April 16, 2022.

Silsbee TX elev 36 ft above sea level. We are in the western gulf coastal plain country now. Also the Bible Belt. This is a totally different Texas from everywhere else we’ve been to this point. We had a flat ride today…no hills to climb, barely a bump. The roads were long and straight. You could see far ahead. Part of the countryside we road they call The Thicket. Off the road is black, swampy, mucky water. Reminds me of scenes from escaping prison and having to wade through the muck…yuck!

Tamales by the 1/2 doz. Fresh every Saturday at the convenience store. The only gig in town. Couldn’t pass up this lunch item from Romayor TX. Definitely delicious. Lucky stop

Various road surfaces and rumble strips. The most challenging being the “mill and fill” scraped road with the very narrow shoulder white line to balance along for about 3 miles. Skills required!

Further down the road at about Mile 40 was a junction called Honey Island. This was lunch stop today. The owner of the General Store (also the only gig in town) sits out front and greets his patrons. Chuck was there with a nice woman triathlete out on her 50 mi Saturday loop from Lumberton. She stops to visit with Chuck regularly. He’s been welcoming Southern Tier cyclists for years. We also enjoyed his stories about the area. There was a blueberry farm just up the road. He said there are several in the area.

We made it to Silsbee pretty early…about 3pm. Very nice RV Park to tent camp. Now that the terrain is flatter we are moving a little faster. Woot woot!!