The Umpteenth Time

Riding Day 22 - 70.89 miles

We got going early this morning after a surprisingly restful night. The motorcycle enthusiasts we were camping with, most of them appearing to be a little long in the tooth, completed their partying early and went to bed at a reasonable hour. I guess time wounds all heels in equal measure.

Riding out of Fredericksburg was more frenetic than I would have imagined for a town of roughly 10,000 inhabitants, especially on a Sunday morning. The motorcycles were already out in force by 8:30, and we missed a turn and had to adlib to get back on the route, but we eventually found ourselves back in the country on another nondescript Texas highway with bad shoulders and little traffic

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The skies were overcast, and a light mist threatened to turn into something more substantial, though it never did. Two deer ran across the road in front of us at one point, pausing to look in our direction before disappearing into the countryside like ghosts. Longhorn cattle, with their incredible horns, rested in pastures full of Bluebonnets, seemingly unaware of their own magnificence.  Hank’s drive chain was dirty, which meant that we had a rhythmic, gritty melody filling the space around us as Odie and I, each of us lost in our own thoughts, pedaled like most people breathe, without thinking, Hank an extension of our bodies now, the world around us constantly changing while remaining the same. Pedal, breathe, repeat.

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In this post, I won’t tell you about the hills, or how relentless and unforgiving they are, because I’ve already done that in previous posts. I won’t share how much I’ve come to dread flying down the steep downhills because they’re ALWAYS followed by a steep uphill. I won’t fill you in on how a hill can so easily melt your resolve when mixed with humidity and wind, because that would sound like defeat. I won’t complain about trying to climb a steep hill in the lowest gear on a shoulder-less road with no margin for error as cars pass a few inches away, because that would sound whinny. And I won’t describe the effects on one’s psyche after you’ve clawed your way to the top of yet another hill for the umpteenth time, only to have the next one slowly reveal itself. I won’t tell you any of this, because it is what it is. What I will tell you is this; if it were in my power to do so, I’d order all the creatures and residents of this part of Texas to evacuate, and once they were all gone, I’d take a big, celestial hammer and pound on those damn hills until they were flatter than a pancake.

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