Day 23

Fort Clark to Leakey

Officially into Texas hill country. The roads got considerably more picturesque. There was a bit of climbing early but nothing bad.

Lots of dead deer and vultures.

We stopped in camp wood and had really good bbq at kings bbq for lunch.

After lunch climbing got really intense. We had the steepest climb of the tour so far I’d say. The road was really narrow too. Luckily traffic was pretty low expect for motorcycles which were very respectful. Apparently the road we were on is part of a big motorcycle route. Even after we got to the top there were some short steep climbs. The descent was really windy and fun. We rolled into leakey.

We had originally planned to do around 80 miles but nick was having a rough day and it was getting late. Non of our phones worked at all. Apparently only one type of cellphone works in leakey.

We asked around and found a nice motel with individual cabins that was next to the cheapest place in town. It was a bit more than we would normally spend but they had a pool. The owner actually bought all three of us a beer each. She also mentioned that we should stop by later and ask her husband about alternative routes to what our maps had us take. The next 30 miles were supposed to have three climbs that were roughly as steep and long as the climb we had done earlier.

We bought a few beers to drink by the pool and went swimming. We then went to a restaurant the owner of the motel had suggested. Nick and chris got the brisket which was terrible. They thought it had probably been microwaved.

We walked back to the motel and I stopped by the bar they had. It was Friday and they had live music. Seemed to be the happening place in town. I found the owners husband and he told me that we could skip those hills via an alternate route which had less climbing. I talked to some of the two owners friends about our trip and they told me that they would watch out for cyclists more now that they had talked to me. I’ve heard these statements before but it always surprises me that people need to talk to someone face to face before they recognize cyclists as people and not just an annoyance.