Day 23 - San Antonio - Lockhart (Lockhart State Park)
56 mi
The original Quik Trip (this is for all the Midwesterners)
It was extremely challenging leaving San Antonio. Getting out of the city was fine, in fact 95% of the riding was pretty easy. However, at first 5% was pretty darn hard. It wasn't physically demanding or dangerous, it was just tough to leave family.
I thought about this pretty much my whole ride today. Why was it so tough to leave?
I think the big thing was that San Antonio was such a major milestone. I had my sights set on San Antonio from very early on. I knew it was my halfway mark, and also my first time on this trip to see a familiar face.
Another big thing was it felt like a little home. It's different than sleeping under a tent. I was in a house with people who cared for me. It felt more like a home than anything I've had for the past 3 weeks.
But the biggest reason leaving San Antonio was so hard was just family. I've had several host families on this trip. And they've all been great! But you can't really compare a host family to actual family.
The whole morning I was slowly getting ready, dreading the eventual departure. And when it finally came time, I've never had such a hard time to get on the bike. I was teary-eyed as I left San Antonio.
Thank you Judy for everything
About an hour into the ride I was doing much better, and back in biker mode. That was another part of it. The first time on the trip I forgot that I was biking across the United States. I was with family and enjoying San Antonio.
It's probably a combination of everything. It was a lot of work to get to San Antonio, I meant so much. So to leave it, to leave family, to go beyond halfway, it's just a little scary. It's really hard to put into words how I feel, but I've put a lot of words that should help paint a clearer picture.
The riding today was pretty easy. I had a lot of my mind, which made it go by extremely fast. I also had all those carbs from the Olive garden helping me out.
It was a lot of quiet country roads. The drivers were extremely courteous. Most of them waiting for all the cars to pass, or driving by me extremely slow. This was really nice.
There was one point where I had to backtrack, Google maps was putting me down a road that barely existed. I'm going to have to keep an eye on this going forward.
It was a cloudy day all day today. It was supposed to rain, but never did. The overcast stayed, and the temperature was pretty low. By pretty low I mean mid '80s.
Did about 4 hours of riding, and then got to the state park. It's a smaller state park, not a ton of camping spots. I actually had to call ahead and reserve this. I was told it was the last one, and indeed it looks like it was.
Not a ton of stuff going on at this state park. A little bit of forest, and a little bit of hiking. Not a lot for me to do. But that is not necessarily a bad thing. Did a decent amount of look ahead and planing out future rides.
The next few days shouldn't be horrible so long as the weather cooperates.
