Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire On the road again.

Mike, if you wind up in the opposite quadrant of New Mexico from Ben, give us a holler! We'll buy/make you a meal, and I'll furnish whatever adult beverages you want!
Depending on timing - we might even have a bed available!

I always used to sleep like a baby down in the cuddly on top of rods, reels and various assorted but lumpy gear when running offshore for tuna or salmon. Something about the constant hum of the motor coupled with too much alcohol a few hours prior made 10’ swells rock my drunken ass to sleep better than any other drug. I’d get up to set the gear and go back to sleep. Once the first “fish on” call came I was up and on it like any good, competent, dedicated, half drunk fisherman would be. I don’t miss those painful mornings.

Like Ryan from the “Office” said (paraphrasing).....ever since I quit drinking there’s something about the fresh morning air that makes me sick. 😂

I went out fishing in the gulf stream off the coast of North Carolina back when I was in my early 20's. The charter boat canceled out the first day because the seas were too rough. They were just as rough the next day but the the Captain was losing too many clients,...getting backed up,...so we went.

6 of us on the boat. 3 of us were violently seassick before we ever got out far enough to wet a line.

I've never been motion sick before or since. But it was *rough* that day. The boat was getting thrown around so bad that you couldn't walk around without holding on to something.

Laying down was the only thing that kept the 3 of us from retching.

3 fishing,...3 layed out like corpses in the morgue.

I was glad to see land come in sight again that day.

Tks Mark, in response to your prior invite Las Vegas NM is high on my list. I’d prob’ly be coming up from the south. Carrizozo, Corona, Vaughn.

What’s your estimate of mileage between available water (faucet, stream or cattle tank, I got a LifeStraw) along that stretch?

How about Colorado?

Yep.

NO bugs at all under the Guadalupe River bridge at Sisterdale, no idea how this can be possible with the Guadalupe River and Sisters Creek right there. Didn’t bother with the tent just threw out a cotton sheet, slept on it.

And the inflatable pillow, always bring an inflatable pillow.

Put your glasses, flashlight, iPhone and Ruger LC9 w/nine round mag in your big ol’straw hat so you can find ‘em in the dark.

No thunderstorms either, they missed.

I brung a 32oz copper cup, filled it with a dry oatmeal/granola mix, added the quart of milk I bought six hours earlier (milk will keep that long easy) and ate it like cereal. If you do not eat fiber on these things, you might not crap again for a month plus oatmeal/granola digested overnight is my baseline fuel.

Four 24oz water bottles give me a 40 mile cruising range.

Could be 20 miles (2 1/2 - 3 hrs) to the nearest caffeine from here. Drop two green tea bags into a water bottle and wait about 20 min. Green tea caffeine is the best, gives a long-lasting lift and won’t burn your stomach like coffee often does.

Beautiful morning, damn it feels good to be on the road again

Leighton... never mind me sleeping on the dirt, I was more impressed with you walking up to a crowd of strangers and then winning (or at least being in the running) a beer bong competition, drinking their beer yet, and everyone applauding.

That takes uncommon talent

Right then, 7:10am, time to hit the road...

You could do better if you quit watching all that stuff you do... vote right, and its going to fall the way it will. Regardless. I sleep just fine at night and about any dang place, but I admit thats after leaving a job involving politics that was suffocating me.

Maybe you haven't heard - that is soda pop.

Godspeed, Birdwatcher.

Good golly that sounds miserable! LOL

Be safe and enjoy your journey!

Have a safe trip, hope it's as good a read as the NY one.

Ya, and I can drink any man under the table.

Egad, 2 hours and 15 minutes to cover 15 miles to Luckenbach. Problem is with the Texas Hill Country is all the hills, slow you way down. My loaded bike weighs around 80lbs and you feel all of it in a hard climb.

Actually the Hill Country is the eroded edge of the High Plains above the Balcones Escarpment (fault line). Trick is to do it like I did, straight north, to get above it. Hopefully flatter terrain from here on in.

Tks

‘89 Schwinn Voyageur, tricked out with all new components except original frame, shifters and deraillieurs. 44-32-22 triple crankset up front, 12-36 nine speed cassette inback. Tubus ranks/Ortlieb panniers front and back. 700x35 Schwalbe Marathon Mondials (their latest high zoot tires).

Fredericksburg now, and all my flabby 62yo chickens have come home to roost. 45 miles to Mason, if I make it.

OK, catch up time....

Day 1: Not 25 miles from home and greeted by three hours of southbound storm cells.... here I was under the Loop 1604 bridge....



No worries, Bass Pro was just 1/2 mile away

The rain that got inside my Lifeproof case did contribute a certain misty effect over the next two days that weren't that obvious on my compact iphone...

For example, north of Boerne, if ya didn't know about the moisture in the iphone case, one might conclude that God was actually a Longhorns fan...





Always hard to run out the door before leaving on a long trip, there's myriad minor details you suddenly want to take care of at the last minute, so it was 10am before I rolled, plus three more hours lost at Bass Pro. Rolled into Sisterdale, 50 miles along about 7. Fifteen miles to Luckenbach but the sky said rain in that direction, and my phone told me about random storm cells forming and rolling south.

So I used up daylight hanging out at the bar and set up camp under the Guadalupe River Bridge.

Funds used Day 1: $21 meal and tip at Bass Pro, $15 tab and tip at bar. $36.

Day 1: 50 miles.

Day 2: First light from under the bridge......



I dunno how it happened but there were no flying insect of any sort, so instead of putting up a tent I just put out a sheet next to the bicycle...



The bridge lies at the meeting of the Guadalupe River and Sister's Creek. 175 years ago this was a rough neighborhood. In particular in two separate engagements not far from that spot Jack Hays and about fifteen stalwart companions gave Yellow Wolf's crew a hard lesson on them newfangled revolvers. Samuel Walker likewise received a pointed lesson about Comanche lances, and based on alla that got together with Samuel Colt to design a bigger, better revolver. Maybe too big, less than ten years later, with improvements made possible both in steel and manufacturing, the first practical (IMHO), affordable, durable and easily reparable fighting handgun was born; the 1851 Colt Navy




Fifteen miles to Luckenbach took 2 1/2 hours , glad I was that I didn't try it at the end of the day before. The operative word in "Texas Hill Country" is "Hill". My steel-framed touring bike weighs 33 pounds naked, add front and rear rack and four panniers; +20 pounds, add 40lbs of clothes, camping gear, bike tools, tubes, spare tire, laptop and water and you're looking at 90lbs give or take. Its geared low for climbing but ya still feel ever pound.

The Hill Country is actually the eroded edge of the High Plains above the Balcones Fault line. It runs in a long arc southwest to northeast. The trick is to ride north ACROSS it like I did and not west along it. North from Boerne to Fredericksburg and then Northwest again to Mason. Anyhoo, no food available that early on a Tuesday at Luckenbach...



So I settled for a $4 bottle of root beer (popularity and population has about killed the place) and rolled on 10 miles to Fredericksburg. $12 for a Jalapeno Whataburger with cheese, fries and a medium vanilla shake in Fredericksburg. Several cups of ice tea later I was still feeling pretty low, I ain't had the time to train for this trip like I did the others. Nothing for it though but to keep going. $3.00 for a quart of milk for that evening on the way.

Stopped on the far edge of town for peaches....

Happy dogs always make for a good photo....



2:30 in the afternoon leaving Fredericksburg, 41 indicated miles to Mason, about 30 to my intended next stop for the night on the Lano. Mostly climbing the first ten miles, but nothing my gears couldn't handled, fine smooth pavement, wide shoulder, tailwind, all good.

Three hours and thirty miles to the Llano. On a bicycle trip ya go from weary to feeling good and back again in a heartbeat. Seen this a few miles from the Llano, an old Aeromotor in operation next to a solar panel, interesting juxtaposition of technology, I wonder what them fictional Rangers McCall and McCrae woulda thought.....



Thirty miles in three hours, hills not withstanding, still feeling strong when I rolled up on the Llano....



Not wanting to start a debate, but I've been in a bunch of states, Texas can go full-on retard when it comes to public access and so it was here. I was looking down at a navigable waterway, I could camp on that river, just had no way of getting down to it, even for a price, it was all fenced off.

So now I was in a bind.

Nine miles to Mason but the 'net indicated no camping there and only one pricey hotel on the square. All I needed was a small patch of ground for the night, in bicycle parlance terms this is called "wild camping". Unlike many, I won't cross a property line to do it. I just needed a 3'x6' patch of public right of way for the night. Lots of places ya can do that without worry but..... did I mention this is Texas?

What decided me was I had less than a quart of water left, typically when you quit after a long day on these things to drink like a gallon over a couple of hours. Nothing for it but to cross my fingers and head to Mason, and water, and then maybe pay out the wazoo for a pricey hotel that I had no use for other than maybe wifi and a shower. Suddenly I was weary and discouraged again.

Get to the grocery store in Mason and... Holy Kshizzle! the friendly young lady on the cash register tells me cheap camping is available at the fairgrounds just around the corner. I grab a gallon of that all-important water and on impulse a half-gallon of buttermilk. I chug down the buttermilk outside the store (this is the "bottomless pit effect", common when bike touring), refill my four 24oz water bottles and head out.

Get to the campground, way-cool elderly retired Arizona State Cop is the campground host, White Mountain area. Campsites with electricity and hot showers just $10 a night. I'm pretty sure if I make it to Heaven, camping there is just $10 a night with power and hot showers

Day 2: 68 miles, 118 total.

Money spent: $4 root beer at Luckenbach, $12 Wataburger, $9 for peaches, $4 groceries, $10 campsite= ~$40. $80 total

Be safe out there Birdwatcher, I am looking forward to your next post.

Day 3: Taking the day off in Mason.

I didn't get to train much for this one, after I crashed out any movement at all triggered paroxysms of leg cramps that no amount of Lite Salt mixed with Sea Salt would cure (a mix that gives about 2:1 NaCl to KCl). Ya HAVE to bring salt on these things. Dosing myself with this in a water bottle stood off incipient legs cramps back in Fredericksburg, and salt craving struck again at the Llano. So I weren't short of salt, it was just my legs reacting to being called upon out of the blue to pedal an 80-90lb bicycle all day.

Taking a day to relax and take stock of everything. In particular I'm carrying 40 miles of water (four 24oz bottles), a few days west of here it could be 70 miles between water, hate to do it but I gotta figure out a way to stash three more bottles and make my bike even heavier.

Anyhoo... here's the ol' homestead, an REI Quarterdome, only ever used on these bike trips, its been pitched from Texas to New York, England, Scotland, Ireland and France, and is now heading West. REI makes good stuff, a pity I can't in good conscience be a member there any more.....



And the Willow Springs Cafe on the square... great food at a very reasonable price, great atmosphere ......and free wifi