Friday 3/11/11

Not much in the way of photos today because it was primarily a travel day.

Cam owes Karen BIG TIME.  Cam couldn't stand the thought of being in BBNP with his bicycle in the truck and not take the opportunity to ride.  So, Karen volunteered to give Cam a head-start this morning so he could ride, and she would bring the truck to pick him up along the way.  The ride started with a 1.5 mile, 12% grade climb up from the lodge, followed by a 4.5 mile, 45+ mph serpentine hair-pin plunge into the canyon, facing into sunrise saturated in pink and orange.  Cam was singing songs to Mr. Sun to climb up and over his distant mountain hideout as the temperatures were in the upper 30's, and Cam was a gloveless (still can't get a glove over the post-surgical thumb) and spring-clad popsicle with chattering teeth and shivering shoulders pedaling the next 35 miles to the park exit and the welcome site of Karen with the warm truck.

We totaled 584 miles today by the time we reached the "Blue Cottage", the house Karen rented for our group in Fredericksburg.  Jim and Kelley will be arriving tomorrow from Vermont. Julie arrived Thursday, spent a night and a day in Austin, and met us in Fredericksburg today.  Karen and Cam unpacked the truck into the house, Karen went to the laundromat while Cam carried all of the bags from the truck upstairs to the bedroom.  We had a short visit with Julie, went to the Sunrise Inn to register for "Hell Week"  (Julie has her own room there rather than sleeping on the sofa at our tiny rental house), then Karen and Cam were off in the truck once more, this time to Kerrville

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One of Karen's Baylor room mates, Jerri, lives in Kerville with her husband, David. After a brief tour of their home, Jerri and David took us to dinner at a wonderful Italian restaurant called ......  Jerri and Karen had a delicious salmon and green pasta dinner, David ate lasagna, and Cam had the orange pork chop chef special.  There was not much sharing around the table - everybody loved their meal too much to give up a single bite (well, Karen gave Cam a bite of her salmon, and Cam was very appreciative, even if he wasn't nice enough to offer her back a bite of his pork chop).  We had a great reunion, and were promised that Jerri and David would come to visit us in New Jersey next year.

By the time we left dinner, drove back to Fredericksburg, shopped for groceries, returned to the Blue Cottage, finished unpacking, prepared all the bike gear, reviewed the bike route for tomorrow, and put away the clean laundry, it was after midnight.  Good night!