Day #20 - 4/1/2011 - San Marcos, TX to Kerrville, TX - 9 miles, then another debacle

What a day, and I don't mean that in a good way.  We covered 9 miles biking, then 100 miles by car.

A good night's sleep (Lani on the sofa and me on an air mattress), oatmeal and raisins, and we 
were ready to hit the road.

Last minute gear adjustments before taking off.

Just as Carl von Clausewitz, a military theorist on the order of Sun Tzu, observed:

"No campaign plan survives first contact with the enemy"

We have observed - more than once - that:

"No planned bicycle route survives first contact with the road."

 So, what went wrong today.  Well, to start with, we were already off the Adventure Cycling Association Southern Tier route, though Lani was attempting to return us to the route.  It just didn't quite happen.  After an easy climb through the Texas State campus and to the outskirts of town, we found ourselves on a too-heavily trafficked shoulderless road.  And things got worse:

The stretch of construction was long and we had no choice but to walk our bikes for a ridiculous distance.

 It took us all of 90 minutes to cover 9 miles.  We pulled over to strategerize.

We pulled over to strategerize.  At least, that's what I did.  Lani looks like she's having too much fun.

Lani had fallen hard and with the dismal road conditions, her spirit waned.  She pouted:

Lani had long since mastered the "how to manipulate dad" pout and was wielding it to maximal effectiveness.

 She showed me her new road rash:

...and just when the old ones were pretty well healed...

I shifted into problem solving mode and the answer quickly materialized: Enterprise Car Rental..."we'll pick you up!"  I made a call to the San Marcos office and spoke with one of the agents there, Jennifer.  Let's see...why was Jennifer wonderful...well, in the world of service professions, the goal of the service provider is to meet the needs of the customer.  What we needed was someone to pick us up in a car that could carry a pair of touring bikes and four panniers...and that's just what Jennifer did.

Jennifer, Enterprise employee extraordinairre, San Marcos, TX

Did you know that you could fit a pair of Surly Long Haul Truckers, four panniers, a tent, two sleeping bags and a few other items into a Dodge Caliber?  I sure didn't.

We had to remove one of the wheels and both flag poles to make this work.

 And off we went to Kerrville, TX where we would drop the car off at another Enterprise location.  Cheating?  Ummm....I'll plead the 5th.  Resourceful?  Sure...I'll take some credit.  But, just as Jennifer of Enterprise met our needs, I was just trying to meet the needs of my daughter.  It salvaged a day that got off to a dismal start.

Anyway, Kerrville, TX, population 20425, gateway to the Texas Hill Country along the Guadalupe River seemed pretty underwhelming as we drove around.  It turned out that bikers (in the motorcycle-sense) use Kerrville as a gateway to the Texas Hill Country

Late in the afternoon, bikers seemed to accumulate in ever-increasing numbers.

 It turns out that Kerrville was a focal point for all sorts of biking activities, including the Thunder in the Hills Biker Church.

The annual Easter rally has been an institution since the church — where many of the members sport tattoos and leather jackets — was formed in 2003.  “It might not be the typical perception of a church-goer, but the message of Christ knows no bounds,” said Pastor Matt Fox.

 Who knew?  By the time we retired to Super 8 Motel( which wasn't really so super), bikers were everywhere.

By late evening, the Super 8 parking lot was packed spoke-to-spoke with motorcycles and their owners, getting ready to rally.

Anyway, after an aborted day of biking we knew we would have a challenging day ahead in the Texas Hill Country.