Day 24 - Lockhart - La Grange
60 miles
Got up early, but for some reason I wasn't able to leave the park as quickly as I had hoped. But that happened for a reason. The plan was to head into town get some groceries, and start riding. It was about a 2 mi ride to get into town. Just as I started to get in town it started to rain a little bit. And then the rain intensified. It picked up so quickly that I had to pull over and put on my rain jacket before I could get all the way into town. It was coming down pretty hard.
This rain wasn't on the forecast. A storm that came out of nowhere.
After putting my jacket on and waterproofing the rest of my gear, I was finally able to get into town. I stopped at a Whataburger and was able to get out of the rain. I looked at the forecast, and it was supposed to last for several hours, till 10:00ish. It was about 6:45 at the time.
Just in that 2 minutes of riding in the rain, I was drenched. There is also water pooling up on the side of the road.
So I did put any sane person would do, I ordered some breakfast and waited it out. It was coming down pretty hard. The worker is there said that it probably would last all day... Even the forecast pushed it back till 10:30ish
But around 7:45ish it started to clear up. The storm left as quickly as it entered. I was on the road around 8ish. Other than that, the riding was really good today. Went down some Texas back roads. A couple really small towns, with nothing in them.
Once I hit LaGrange, I stopped at a dollar store picked up some food.
And I was finished with the riding pretty early. It was before 1:00. I wish I could have done some more writing, but there were no hotels or campgrounds for the next 30 to 40 miles in the direction I was heading.
However the desire to do more mileage quickly dissolve as I pulled into the RV park in LaGrange. It was massive! I think they had space for more than 120 RVs. The place had a swimming pool! And then they also had a rec center, basically an air conditioned room with a TV.
I started doing some admin stuff, and checked out the sky and realized that it was about to pour. Again, the weather said it wasn't going to rain, but I've learned anything, the forecast is just a forecast. I need to trust my gut and trust my eyes with this stuff.
So I took all my gear and had it into the rec room. And yes it did pour. For probably 4 or 5 hours. There is a lot of rain.
While I was in the rec room, the owner stopped by and said that I could just spend the night in the rec room. There is a decent chance for rain again tonight. So that makes things simple.
No complaints for me, this is a pretty awesome RV park. And everything worked out extremely well today. It rained in the morning, I got to eat some breakfast at a fast food joint. I didn't do the extra mileage today, I got to go to an awesome RV park and missed any potential rain this afternoon.
People make this trip what it is. Sure I am biking across the country, but it is all about the people