|
 
Sunday, November 4, 2001 - No Wind Is Good Wind
44 miles. Campwood, TX to Lost Maples State Park, near Vanderpool, TX
Today was one of those rides that you would bottle
up and save if possible. A cold front came thru yesterday evening and the temp
today was in the low 70's. We cruised the four miles into Camp Wood (pop. 595)
and had our second breakfast. It was a good thing because it was to be a
strenuous ride. The next 40 miles were thru the heart of the Texas Hill Country.
First a word about these Texas hills; as you would expect in Texas they are not
really "hills" but in reality they are small mountains. They have all
the attributes of mountains except they only go up to 2,300 feet or so. Local
relief is over 1000 feet in some places and we were in all of those places today
as we cruised thru the heart of the hills.
There were three major climbs as steep as any we have
encountered on the trip and the last descent was notably sharp and steep. There
are lots of trees now and looking off into the valleys reminded us of the
Appalachians. It took us six hours to do the 40 miles and I think we are finally
over exhaustion caused by our debacle with wind a few days ago. Total climbing was
about 2,500 feet.
After the first 20 miles we had lunch in Leakey (pop.
397). It appears to be a prosperous little town compared to what we have gotten
used to in west Texas. We are now encountering streams that actually have water
in them and are spending the night in Lost Maples State Park. It turns out that
this is one of the most popular parks in Texas because there is a relic stand of
Big Tooth Maple (Acer Grandidentatum) here and real fall color is possible. It
is located in a protected canyon that spawns the Sabinal River and the maples
thrive here.
Unfortunately this may not be a good color year because
it has not yet gotten cold and the maples are just turning brown and dropping.
It is interesting how much value people place on fall color to signify the
changing of the seasons because most of the other trees here have no real color.
They often hold their leaves until January and start a new crop by the end of
February. We did notice a bit of color leaving Leakey along the Frio River. We
had read an historical marker indicating that the first settler in Leakey [the
town was named after him] started making cypress shakes.
Leaving town we came across bald cypress growing right
along the river. It had a pale crimson hue and I was surprised to see it growing
so far inland up in these hills. Sycamore also put in an appearance and it is
nice to see familiar eastern trees starting to make their cameo
appearances.
Because the park is always full this time of year we
were lucky to get in at all to camp. Michigan and many other states we have been
in have the eminently sensible policy of allowing cyclists to camp somewhere as
overflow if the park is full. Texas' learning curve here is not what it is in
other areas. As I walked out of the office so as not to say something stupid as
Joan was pleading our case, a generous couple from Nebraska offered to let us
camp in the tent site down the bank from their campsite and thus was crisis
averted. It looks like those Cornhuskers are alright after all. They've got some
great lotion too.
|
