October 22 - Austin, TX

October 22 - Saturday; Austin, TX; Layover Day; 6 miles.
Our Kerrville celebration was for reaching half of the trip mileage. Today is the calendar half way as we’ve been going 33 of 64 planned days.

It was sure nice to sleep in a bed for a change. It had been 8 or 9 days of camping since the last time I slept in a bed. I got up at 6:00 am and ate at the motel office where they had a continental breakfast. I then did laundry. RJ, Ray, Adrian and I took off around 10:15 am to find a UPS store so I could send stuff back to Susi to offset the laptop and cold-weather clothes weight. We arrived at 10:25 am but it did not open until 11:00 am so we set off to find Lance Armstrong’s Mellow Johnny’s bike shop. It is a pretty neat place with 5 or 6 of Armstrong’s older bikes on display. My general impression is that it must be the “place to be” on Saturday morning if you part of the Austin bicycling scene. They sure sold a lot of merchandise in the half hour I was there. I only bought chamois cream, an essential part of a comfortable day’s ride for me personally, right Al? We then found another UPS store and I shipped the box home. Outside the UPS store we talked at length with one of the local UPS drivers who is also a high school football referee. He had great stories about officiating football in the great state of Texas where football reigns supreme. He officiated at one last night where two parents on the losing-end of a 42 – 0 loss were escorted from the stadium by the local sheriff’s deputies. He made it sound like this is not a totally uncommon occurrence. We then proceeded to Stubbs BBQ which we had passed on our way to the motel yesterday for lunch. I had the brisket plate and it was SUPER and a great antidote indeed for the Ethiopian dinner last night. I returned to the motel and worked on the previous daily updates to this blog and various other tasks. I also walked 1.5 miles to a Best Buy to purchase a battery charger for the camera Susi sent (I forgot to ask for the charger). After my 3 mile walk the group had a map meeting to discuss getting out of Austin tomorrow and back on the main route. Austin is not actually on the main route but the map has two sections for the “Austin Alternate” for those wanting to take in the city. We had dinner at a local dinner complete with pie and ice cream. My overall impression of Austin is positive except that Longhorn fans live here. I see on ESPN that Texas A&M beat Iowa State today – sorry Kent.