April 14, Day 23 cycling Fredericksburg to countryside near Vanderpool, TX

First a shout out to our daughter Clara and her hubby Alex on their 8th wedding anniversary today. We love them so much and are proud of the amazing life they have created and continue to create together.

The 81 miles 3989’ were hard today! First 30 miles to Kerrville were mostly on ranch roads which were beautiful with no traffic, but chipseal and wind and constant mist made the morning harder than it should have been. Stopped at Starbucks and on again with more of the same. The scenery through west hill ranches and up the Guadalupe River, then the South Fork of the Guadalupe River was beautiful and idyllic if you didn’t notice the still apparent devastation and destruction from the 30’ floods just last July that killed many people and destroyed a lot of property. We cycled by many riverside camps including Camp Mystic. Google the sad tragedy when 13” of rain dumped in 4 hours in the middle of the night in the mountains above the river.

Thankfully Jody surmised our exhaustion after several check-ins along the route. My body felt beat up from the road surfaces today and the headwinds when we were headed south several times today. Jody, after having scouted the additional distance and location of our very rustic cabin in the woods, waited for us at the Lost Maples store and offered us a ride late in the afternoon (to save an additional 4 miles up and over a big pass!)! We all gladly loaded our bikes and called it a day!