Day 28 - Peaceful potter

 Today has been a peaceful little day's riding. It may've been a 110 miler over long rolling hills, but it was just a peaceful, decent days riding. Probably hugely tempting fate here, but if the rest of the trip is like this, it'll be seriously enjoyable.

I was out of the San Antonio suburbs in well under an hour, which was a relief. Suburban riding is the roughest, most stop start possible. Maybe it was just the route I came in and left San Antonio, but outside the city centre it looks tired and short of cash. That said, I didn't stop on either occasion or look further than the main drags, so potentially that's a very unfair statement.

Once out the city the next 3 hours odd was a pretty dull slog along the frontage road of 1-10. Essentially just trucking along the service road for the freeway. With grey clouds on all sides and the humidity up, I'd rather resigned myself to a dull days riding by 10:00.

All that changed when I pealed off onto highway 90 a Seguin, 30 miles in. The rest of the 80 miles was through beautiful, peaceful, rolling green fields. Maybe I've got desert eyes, and any blade of grass would look like home, but much of the day reminded me of rural far South West Surrey and East Hampshire. Which in turn made me feel like the quintessential cliched Brit abroad....."Cyril did like the Taj Mahal, it reminded him of Brighton" and all that guff.

Makes towns easy to spot

The ride was not without issues. Google maps failed me again. The dead flat terrain, was distinctly hilly. The wind never really worked out what it was doing, making some stretches tough. And unfortunately the majority of the day was back out on Texas tarmac. Someone seriously needs to come down here and teach the Texans to tarmac. Some stretches were laughably bad. But none of this took away from a great day.

The icing on the cake was the little towns passed through today. Some were better off than others, but they were all interesting little places. Main streets oozing the faded glamour of frontier towns, with long main streets stretched out either side of the railway line that cutting straight down the centre of each town. With the push towards drive thrus and out of town shops, all the town centres looked well past there prime, and semi-deserted. There is still something very cool about them though. It's difficult to see where they go from here with the historic town centres. All the pressure is away from them, and there's clearly a glut of such communities round here, but it would be a shame if none are preserved in tact.

My favourite was Luling. Despite looking significantly more frayed than the others, some how the town centre was still thriving and farmers market busy. I stopped at the main BBQ joint in town, and was treated to some of the best food of the trip, in a packed little restaurant. Here's hoping this is the start of a shifting trend over the next few weeks.

Bar that I have made only one other discovery today, and it's not a good one. As I move into more populated areas I have a new challenge to face.....dogs. 95% are caged, and 100% seem to view aggressive barking as their soul's sole function. It's the 5% that aren't caged that are the problem. Suddenly they appear by your foot snarling and bellowing till you are out their patch. It's clearly an annoyance and tedium I'm just going to have to get used to.

Breakfast - Granola and yogurt, and half a bowl of oatmeal at the hotel. Delicious and set me up for the day.
Lunch - BBQ chicken, coleslaw and cucumber salad - Luling Bar-B-Que. Fantastic locally produced fair. One of the best meals of the whole trip and such a joy. The restaurant was a basic little place, but right on the money for a proper Texan experience. Understandably busy.
Supper - Beef brisket sandwich, potato salad, and green salad - Frankie's, Schlumberg. Not going to set the world on fire, but was a reasonable little feed. Polished off with a could of complimentary cookies from the hotel.