Texas

The blue line on this progress map shows the Adventure Cycling Southern Tier route I initially planned to take. The green line shows my actual route, including how I diverted through the Texas Hill Country to Fredericksburg and Luckenbach, then to the State Capitol in Austin and down to the Gulf of Mexico.

TEXAS IS BIG!! It is also very diverse. I started out biking in the Texas grasslands, very flat, desert like landscape, a lot of cotton fields; then biked through the Texas Hill country with its gentle hills and rugged canyons, and wild flowers; dipped down to the Gulf and Galveston Island, then finished in East Texas, which has lush vegetation with lots of ponds and rivers and forests which reminded me of Oregon. There are almost as many horses in Texas as there are people. Every front yard, which is at least 2 acres of perfectly manicured lawn, has a few horses grazing. There were these impressive, huge gates leading to ranch houses which were not visible from the road and which were at least a mile away from the gates. Thousands of cattle and Texas Longhorns, and sheeps and goats. In my opinion, it is also the state of road kill. I have never seen so much road kill in my whole life as I have seen in Texas. In one day, I saw numerous skunks, large birds, two deers, and one ocelot. So sad - I wonder why? I guess because there is so much wildlife here. It cannot be the traffic, because the roads I biked had hardly any traffic.

The SAG man meets a pioneer on the Santa Fe Trail.

Bush country.

Stopping in the Texas Hill Country to enjoy the view.

The Vogel Sunday House in Fredericksburg. Sunday houses were used in the 1800s and the early 1900s by Texas Ranch families when they came into town on the weekend to shop and attend Sunday church services. This is just one of many in Fredericksburg. It is still being used as a residence.

The Vereinskirche in Fredericksburg. This is a church for all denominations and was built in the early 1800s. Fredericksburg was established by German settlers in the early 1800s, and German is still spoken here.

John O. Meusebach, a German Settler in Fredericksburg, and Penatuka Comanche Chief Santana share a peace pipe, May 9, 1847. It is the only known peace treaty never to have been broken.

Riding to the strawberry fields to pick strawberries.

SAG man goes to school...

... in the now abandoned one-room school house.

On the road to Luckenbach Texas.

Had to wear my new Texas bike helmet.

Good ole boys in Luckenbach.

The Texas State Capitol in Austin.

The famous River Walk in San Antonio. San Antonio is a really beautiful city.

The Alamo in San Antonio, where Davy Crocket and Sam Houston fought General Santa Ana, the battle that changed Texas and the world.

A chat over the fence with a Texas longhorn.

Cactus in bloom.

Camping by the Gulf of Mexico at Mustang Island.

Snakes!!!
Parts of Texas look like Oregon.