Day 31: Monday, 4/6/15, La Grange, TX (71º at 6:30 am) to Richards, TX (81º at 3:45 pm) 87 miles, elevation changes: +3090/-3061.

This today’s theme is primitive housing.  It was a fabulous day to ride 87+ miles. I was off at 7:05 am, my earliest yet, on a cloudy, very humid day with no wind. About 9:30 the wind really started blowing, 10 – 15 mph with gusts to 25 out of the south. We were basically riding to the east-northeast, thus it was a cross wind and at times an angled tail wind. It cleared up and became partly cloudy by 11 am. It remained humid, but never got much over 80º.  I drank well over a gallon of a combination of water, Gatorade, a DQ vanilla milk shake, and V8 juice (V8 has a lot of potassium which helps prevent leg muscle cramps). The road surface was mostly smooth with only a few rough sections.  The landscape was rolling hills, just like yesterday, thus the high elevation gain and loss. I’m sorry to bore you with details about the weather, the road conditions, and the landscape, but these are the bikers life on the road.

I travelled through cattle country. I took very few pictures; yesterday’s pictures showed the landscape we rode through today. We are getting closer to the Gulf of Mexico., thus rolling, gentle hills. The blue bonnets and Indian paint brush flowers (Thanks to Carol Williams for emailing me last night the name of the orange flowers.) were everywhere, so beautiful.

I did pass several log cabins, the type the first settlers lived in. See the pictures below. I also promised to tell you about life living in a tent. This today’s theme is primitive housing.

Bike stats: 89.6 miles ridden in 6 hours and four minutes of actual biking time, averaging 14.7 mph with a maximum speed of 34.3 mph.

Highlights:

• Having Astronaut Bill McArthur give our Coast-2-Coast group a lecture last night about his 6 months living on the International Space Station. Bubba Barron, our trip coordinator and leader is full of surprises.
• Biking, very successfully today our second longest mileage day, 89.6 miles. Big Blue and I are totally in sync as a team.
• Seeing original log cabins of the type lived in by the first settlers.
• Seeing the statue of Frank Hamer, the famous TX Ranger who killed Bonnie and Clyde.
• Arriving at the Mexican Hill Ranch in Richards, TX where we stay for two nights; tomorrow in a rest day. 

Two original log cabins of the type first lived in by settlers in the late 1800’s early 1900’s, very primitive.

A statue of Frank Hamer, the TX Ranger who killed Bonnie and Clyde.

My tent, T4. The Wolf Pack -- 5 young men who do all the heavy lifting setting up and taking down camp each night and morning -- set-up T4 each afternoon putting inside my two bags with my air matters blown up. The last picture is how the interior of T4 looks with my belongings all laid out. The toughest challenge is getting up and down off the mattress. I sleep really well each night because I have gotten really good and putting foam earplugs into my ears to cut out all the snoring, traffic noise, train noise, the wind, and other noise depending on where we camp.

Make it a great day!

John