Day 2 - To Blanco State Park

After sleeping for 10 hours, I made some wheat tacos with scrambled eggs. I then decided to lighten up my bag and reluctantly took out a book (after finding its ebook version), the red beanie I had purchased in Norway, the gray neck wrap I had bought in Montenegro, my green sweatshirt that I was hoping to camouflage with while stealth camping, the soft saddle cushion (both Pete and Ray had advised that I ditch it) and a chili garlic sauce jar. Kimberly suggested that I could shift the almond butter and marmalade into zip-lock sachets. That addressed the imbalance in the front bags. She also gave me some hot spice powder and curry powder. I left Kimberly and Ray's place at about 12:30 pm for Blanco State Park. Here's the ride in pictures:

Oh, look, another hill to climb!

That's no cattle guard. It's more of a
cattle crippler so they wouldn't run away.

Check out the wind!

See that water on the road. Those are the kind of roads that get flooded. I crossed several such roads in "Hill Country". Fortunately, not even one was actually flooded. Ray told me how cyclists had hurt their collar bones while crossing such flooded roads.

One of the many horse ranches I crossed

The most handsome cattle ever! I bet they're bred for some beauty pageant in Texas. I couldn't get a better shot 'cause was too scared of them charging at me with those horns.

A dead hare. I spot dead animals on the roads all the time.

Brownie basking in the sun

That valley down there looked so beautiful!

This cow was at least 50 feet away. Yet it was scared of me. She stopped drinking water as I came downhill and continued staring at me till I left.

As I told you before, Texans hold massive plots of land. It's all private property. Some of them also let loose some exotic species on their land. I guess for game hunting. There was this one stretch of road where it seemed like biking in the Serengeti. There was a herd of deer (possibly including an Indian black buck) pacing with me and Brownie a few feet away from the fence. It was beautiful. Sorry no pictures of that. I did not want to ruin the moment by capturing it.

I reached Blanco at about 7pm. I had to bother an old couple in their RV to figure out where I could camp since the Park's office shut at 4:45. Made some oatmeal and had it with canned crab meat. I needed a shower after that ride in the heat. But I could not figure out the code for the showers. The temperature dropped to about 0°C. I could hardly sleep in my new sleeping bag. My plan of leaving early the next morning was ruined.