Day 18, We enter the hills

I have to start out with this pic, it just makes me smile.  This is Pops and his cousin (RV driver) Les.

Now that you have a grin on your face lets keep it going.  As we were riding down the road thinking about lunch I had a car pass me going the other way and a gentleman waived at me.  So naturally I waved back and kept pedaling.  In about 2 minutes the same car pulls up beside me rolled the window down and shouted out my name.  I looked a little closer and it was one of my co-workers Crosby Shutley had driven down to find us as we drove through his home state.  I was really impressed that he would take the time to find us and say hello.  Crosby if you are reading this thank you it was a big boost at that point in the day.

After this on we rode, along the winding roads the ever steepening hills and the many unfortunate deer that did not make it across the road safely.  When we reached the RV we found out that our ride for the day was going to be cut short.  But this was not bad news, we needed to stop early so we could make it to dinner with the folks from the Comfort Baptist Church.  It was a great meal and the people we met were fantastic and extremely friendlily.  I want to thank them all for there tremendous hospitality. 

What does this mean for us, we simply get up and ride the remaining miles in the morning and start our rest day a little late.  This kind of thing is what it is all about.  If you are ever going through Comfort, TX make sure to stop in and say hi.

On our way out of Kyle, Texas we were officially welcomed to the Hill Country of Texas.  What does this mean for us, steeper tougher hills to climb.  This is were Lance Armstrong does his training so you know it can prove to be challenging.  I was reminded today that looks of hills can be deceiving.  After coming off a decent and approaching what appeared to be a small hill I figured I could stay in my hi gears and just power up the hill, WRONG.  It turned out to be a lot steeper at the beginning then I thought and i could not get into the right gear quick enough.  I i almost came to a complete stop.  Now normally that would be a problem that with a little work could be overcome, in this case the top of this hill was a false top that lead to a longer just as steep hill, with yet another false top.  So what did I learn, prepare to climb before you climb.  This one mistake was painful.

Lesson for the day,  Don't handle fresh Armadillo meat.  If you want to know why go to CNN and look it up.  We also learned this from the Pastor at the church tonight.