A "Comfort" able ride to Blanco, Texas

Charles Breer here guest blogging on Week 4 of the

Fill This House

Transcontinental ride of Peter Conway and Carl Tippit. I’m Peter’s cousin and just thrilled to be able to join him during part of his long-time dream to ride across the country.

What a day we had today! We managed to successfully navigate about 30 turns on our winding route through the heart of the Texas Hill Country in our 68-mile ride from Ingram to Blanco. (By contrast, yesterday we had only one turn.) Carl informs me that he and Peter crossed the halfway point today in terms of both mileage and number of days and they are looking just great.

The first 44 miles to our lunch stop in Sisterdale was truly delightful. The route was a gradual downhill, we had a tailwind and, for a while, a light mist, as we wandered across the countryside on the smoothest roads yet in Texas. Fellow rider Sam Lombardo came into his own on this stretch, feeling reinvigorated after his gears got a thorough tune-up, courtesy of the Hill Country Bicycle Works in Kerrville. Everything seemed to come together for Sam and it was rewarding to see him having such a good time on the bike.

The Hill Country has exceeded all of our expectations in just about every way. The roads are quiet, the drivers are friendly and the scenery is very nice – not what I would have imagined in Texas. There’s plenty of the typical dry scrub ranch land, but this part of Texas has many more trees and scenic river valleys than we saw further west. Also, this area clearly has more people, which means that the towns and villages are closer together and they have been charming and historic. We especially enjoyed the town of Comfort, which had a classic main street and many historic markers.

Today’s highlight on the road had to have been the historic marker commemorating the site of an armadillo farm, just outside Comfort. The innovation in this case was that the family became famous and prosperous making baskets from armadillo shells. Peter religiously stops at all historical markers and he rated this the best of the trip so far.

Our accommodations in Blanco tonight are a 3-bedroom cottage, owned by the Blanco County Inn and it’s been great to have a real house to stay in. It is fully furnished, with a nice living and dining room, so we elected to have dinner at “home”. Our driver, Dan Fishwick, along with fellow guest rider Michael Novak took charge of the dinner preparations, which resulted in pasta with special sauce, salad, garlic bread, avocado halves and ice cream for dessert. Nice to not be in a restaurant for dinner tonight. We were even able to do several loads of laundry for free! Now the guys are all watching the first game of the World Series together in our communal living room.

The town of Blanco isn’t large, but it is arranged around an old courthouse building, with a classic wild west-type square, complete with post office, pharmacy, bank, BBQ joint and several antique shops. Really charming!

Although I’m just joining for a week, I am reminded how wonderful it is to ride across the country at bicycle speed, taking in the nature, the culture, the smells and the sights. Best of all is being able to share these experiences with my cousin Peter and his great friends and fellow riders. We are all lucky to be here.

Want to see the ride so far? Here is the link:

http://www.mapmyride.com/route/us/ca/san diego/949128821425827364