Biking


Looking Backward and Preparing to Look Forward

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Off the Beaten Path, and Off Route

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Monday, March 6 I had an excellent start to my morning by staying at the Peachtree Inn and Suites in Fredericksburg.  Their idea of a Continental breakfast is one every hotel should adopt!  Besides the usual coffee and instant oatmeal, they had hard-boiled eggs and real, hand-made, pastries.  I loaded up and had oatmeal, a hard-boiled egg, a slice of peach coffee cake, and a piece of sticky bun.  Yum! Breakfast, though, turned out to be the highlight of the day... Once again, the weather was iffy and would sprinkle now and then.  It was supposed to be a clear day. Sigh. I had met a family from Iceland biking eastward the previous day.  The father mentioned that he deviated from the cycle association route by taking Highway 16.  I decided to do the same as it would save me about 10 miles to my destination of Vanderpool. When I rolled through Kerrville I decided to stop for a snack and enjoyed a kolache and an apple fritter.  Plus I got another kolache and a ham-and-cheese
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Starting Our Sabbatical Year with a Lucky Charm!

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On December 31, 2016, Will started his "gap year."   After more than 20 years in the technology field, and 15 years with one company, Will decided that he wanted to take a little break and see more of the world. In a way, it was a "perfect storm." His company was closing its smaller offices (one of the smallest offices was the one Will was associated with), and he opted to take a generous separation package rather than stay with the company and uproot us from our Chicago home (and my work) to the West Coast.  In mid-life and mid-career, he liked the sound of taking what we (and everyone he worked with) came to call a "gap year," to "recharge" his batteries.  In part, the notion of a sabbatical of sorts was all the more appealing because I would be eligible to take a full-year sabbatical once my spring semester of teaching was over in May 2017.  Well, why not we take a sabbatical year together?! While I am not on sabbatical
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Long and Winding Road...into West Texas Wilderness

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Wednesday, March 8 It is official. I have now completed 4 of the 7 maps for this route.  Only 1384 miles to go!  Of course, 452 of those are still in Texas... Today, I made good time.  I started a little after 7am from Uvalde and made it into Del Rio by 2pm.  I ran into a group of three young guys heading east who started from San Diego on the 16th.  Unfortunately, I forgot to ask them how the roads and accommodations were further west.  It's so exciting to see fellow bikers on this route--heck, anybody!--that mundane and practical questions don't get asked.  You know, questions like: "Will I survive the next few days?" or "Is there any water for the next 80 miles?" or "Did you have to camp by the side of the highway like the association map said you might have to?" Although I'm not in the wilderness yet, this section was pretty barren country as well.  There weren't any towns with services between Uvalde and Brackettville (40
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