Week 32

Day 218

Saturday 1st February 2020

Gonzales to Eagle Lake.

After a much quieter breakfast, where Raz finally perfected her waffle making - we set off. It was a cold morning but bright. The wind had shifted and dropped - all was good in the world.

We all have our preconceptions about places - I imagined Texas to be full of oil wells, (probably as a result of watching too many episodes of Dallas when I was growing up - although having had a shower - we were still in Texas - it’s not a dream (Bobby in Dallas reference)) ...anyway today we saw our first oil wells bobbing away like those birds that dip into water. This area is lush and green - as we passed farms and ranches.

We stopped for coffee in Shiner which is famous for its beer, (not that we drank any) -instead we drank too much coffee - chatting to the owner of the cafe and a customer who had spent time living in England. We were given T shirts from the cafe featuring Big Foot (who I always thought lived in mountains - but clearly not).

We continued our ride passing lots of Trump flags (and multiple posters - asking people to vote for judges, attorneys, sheriffs and Constables - democracy in action), and a surprising number of trailers and trailer parks where people live. However, the countryside was lovely and the miles flew by.

We stopped for lunch at a Mexican restaurant which served huge portions and tried several times to do a video to wish the children of #plumcroftschool luck as they will be riding their bikes 1 mile tomorrow (one of the outtakes is below).

We finally stopped at Eagle Lake in a basic hotel which is fine for a night’s sleep. Houston tomorrow.

Day 219

Sunday 2nd February 2020

Eagle Lake to Houston.

We woke to a beautiful bright day and set off before the sun warmed us up. We stopped for breakfast at a Mexican restaurant at the edge of town - adding chilly sauce to Mexican eggs.

We passed lush green farm land and managed to get off the main road as we headed towards Houston.

We met a group of local cyclists out for their Sunday ride - and chatted to Makyn, Abraham , Juan and Leslie about our journey.

The contrast as we reached the suburbs of Houston was stark when compared with the type of accommodation we had seen since leaving California. Suddenly we were surrounded by large houses in manicured estates - not a trailer in sight.

The roads were quite, (we later learned it was Super Bowl Sunday and the whole of