Day 13 – Living the Nightmare

Saturday, June 20th

Waco, TX to Georgetown, TX

Though we intended to ride to Austin, spend the night, then ride home to San Antonio in the morning, we decided not to.  My sister already had plans to be in Austin and she offered to pick us up in Georgetown, giving us a lift over the last 120-130 miles.  Having done the Austin-to-San Antonio ride more times than I’d like, and considering that Dad’s suffered through it three or four times as often as I have, we figured we wouldn’t be missing out on much if we skipped that last leg of the trip.

I awoke this morning early, coughing and exhausted from fitful sleep.  Thankfully, Lee offered to pick up Dad from Mary’s while I got ready for the day’s ride and tried to stomach a little bowl of oatmeal.  The winds were supposed to be a little lighter today, but they still predicted 15 mph winds after mid-morning up until around 6pm.  Amazingly, we did managed to get an early start – around 7 or 7:30 – and with only 70 miles to go to my grandpa’s house in Georgetown, we hoped to be off the road before noon or so.  The 1pm to 5pm sun has been particularly detrimental lately, so we wanted to avoid it as much as possible.

We headed South out of town on Bagby/Old Temple Rd, then met up with Spring Valley Rd, and though I planned to have Dad ride the length of Spring Valley (since a big stretch of it is an awesome ride), we decided to turn off at Old Lorena Rd to save some time.  By this time, I was already exhausted from pedaling, fighting coughing fits and suffering allergies so I slowed down and cranked up the motor.

We met up with 35 and rode the access road all the way to Temple where we took the HK Dodgen Loop to circumvent the city traffic and the discontinuities in the interstate access road.  The winds weren’t too bad just South of Waco, but once we got onto the I-35, they picked up and were much stronger than the predictions.  On the Dodgen Loop, we passed some big “Mowers Ahead” signs on spring-loaded stands (something like this) that were folded over by the wind.  At first we couldn’t even read what they cautioned against, but the wind starting gusting and between blasts, the signs would pop up a bit to reveal their message before bowing to the road again.

I don’t know if it’s the terrain of the area (which is one long hill after another) or just bad luck on our part, but there always seem to be phenomenal winds between Waco and Austin.  On a previous solo trip, Dad burned out his bottom bracket cranking against these nightmarish winds.  Though today wasn’t that bad, it was a close second:

Thankfully, we still got to stop at the fudge shop in Salado.  Tisha wasn’t there, but the new fudge was.  Though I was feeling too horrible to eat anything, Dad bought a block of the much-anticipated fudge and a Dr Pepper and feasted on both as I rested in misery.  The sugar gave him a much-needed boost for the last stretch to Georgetown, but I was so low on fuel, I had to turn up the motor more.

About a mile and a half away from my grandpa’s house, I began to get really nervous.  On this short, horrendous ride I had drained my battery more than on any other day of the trip.  Looking at the Amp-hours I had burned through, I was afraid I would have to push the bike the last mile.  Luckily, when I radioed Dad about my situation, he told me that he had lowered the voltage cut-off point on the battery controller, so I still had a some voltage to spare.

We eventually made it to my grandpa’s with me in shambles and Dad pretty worn out.  We laid on the driveway for awhile, trying to recover then went to greet Dad’s dad.  We relaxed and visited with my grandpa, then some time after my sister picked us up, we set out.  We made a quick stop to visit and eat lunch with my grandma in Pflugerville, then we were on the road heading home.  At this point I passed out on the floor of the van (the benches had been left at home to accommodate the bikes).  I woke up in San Antonio a few miles from our house.  We made a quick stop by Helotes Bicycle to see Hank and drop off Dad, then I went home and slept most of the rest of the day.

(stats to come)