Pat and Sari's Honeymoon Bike Ride

Wednesday, April 09, 2008
Eagle Lake, TX to La Grange, TX
45 miles (2007 total miles)

We hit 2000 miles today! The momentous occasion happened on the road with no one around so we took each other's picture separately and cut-and-pasted them together. Practically seamless. Pat thought we ought to do one straight, though, so we had someone take our picture where we stopped for lunch, a few miles later. I still like ours better.

Today was a short day and pretty easy. We went 45 miles in 10 minutes short of 4 hours. We had left at 7:30 after a good breakfast at a restaurant right next to our motel, and got to our campsite by 4:30. Pat had to fix a flat tire today, though. Our front tire stepped on a short nail that was embedded in a little square of metal; the only reason we noticed was that the metal made a funny noise as the tire rotated with the nail stuck in it. Luckily, the tire was ok, so we only had to change the inner tube. The weather wasn't bad - it was cloudy all day with just a little sprinkle right before we got to the campsite. It was dry enough when we set up our tent at least. The temperature was milder than yesterday although it was more humid. We said good-bye to the flat lands, finally; there weren't many hills and they were very gentle, but I expect we get more and steeper as we go. But we did have a tail wind all day!

We started going through the town of Eagle Lake which had some historic buildings, so we took a picture or two. Our first road, Highway 102, was rough and narrow, but almost no traffic. We went by some smaller farms and ranches - saw a couple of Texas Longhorn ranches, one with a great lawn ornament of an old stage coach, the other with a real Longhorn steer (the picture wasn't great, but you should be able to see him). We stopped at a gas station just before turning onto US 90 which we took into Columbus, another town with some interesting buildings. We crossed the Colorado River (this is not the one that runs through the Grand Canyon; Texas has its own version) and shortly therafter got the flat. We got onto State Road 71 after a few more miles and crossed the Colorado again. This time we saw a bunch of cows wading at the river's edge. We also went by a classic cars store with a neat old Thunderbird out on display. We had lunch in the town of Ellinger, the only town we saw along 71. We arrived at our campground/RV Park at 1:30 and took a few pictures here too. The office had a beautiful garden around it and bathrooms and showers inside, as well as a comfortable place to work on our website and a friendly Labrador mix called Lucky. There's a Mexican restaurant nearby we plan to walk to for dinner soon.

The other highlight today was all the wildflowers we saw. We finally saw the famous Blue Bonnet, the Texas state flower. There were scads of them along the highway today, along with Indian Paintbrush, Primrose, and several other new wildflowers Sarah will have to help me name. I've put all the wildflower pictures at the end. Enjoy!

Historic buildings in Eagle Lake

A pretty house just outside Eagle Lake

Highway 102 - rough and narrow

Stagecoach and steer silhouettes in front of a Longhorn ranch

Historical marker in Alleyton, a few miles before Columbus

Trees along US 90

Bridge over the Colorado River

The Colorado River

View of the river on the other side of the bridge

View of the Columbus Courthouse, obscured by trees

An elegant mansion in Columbus

The Colorado River on the other side of Columbus, with bathing cows

Our bike resting at the 2000 mile mark

Sari & Pat spelling out 2000 - see, you can't tell it was stitched together, right?

SR 71 - wide shoulder, smooth road

The Texas Longhorn steer is in the middle (you can tell by the horns)

The official 2000-mile picture (not nearly as good)

Trees and wildflowers along SR 71

Swaths of Blue Bonnets

A power plant nearby

The Thunderbird in front of the classic car dealer

The campground office

Garden by the campground office

Iris in the garden

Lucky, the resident Lab at the campground

Our tent set up

A chestnut tree behind our tent

A 'tree' house by the river

The Colorado River behind our campground

Another view of the river

Wildflowers by the road today - yellow daisies

Scarlet Flax

Hedge Rose

Prairie Nymph (Iris family)

Showy Evening Primrose

Something in the sunflower/daisy family

Berlandier's Flax

Wine Cup among Primroses

Blue Bonnets

Something in the mint family

Antelope Horns

Bur Clover and Primroses