Day 19, Brackettville to Leaky 70 miles

We ate breakfast at a little cafe across from the fort. The breakfast crowd wanted to hear all about our trip and wished us safe travels. We took a back ranch road to Camp Wood. For fifty miles there were no services but the morning was cool and we carried extra bottles of water. The road was lined with yellow bladderworts, wild purple verbena, and yellow and white daisies. During the first thirty miles only eight cars were on the road.

There were enormous ranches set far back from the road and one ranch consisting of 733 acres was for sale.

At lunch in Camp Wood we met a group of eight cyclists heading for San Diego. They take turns driving a van carrying their camping gear. They warned us about the hard hills in Texas. We knew that we had a steep hill ahead of us. Before we started our long upward trek, Ruth bought chocolates as an incentive for us to do the ten mile climb.

As we climbed higher, there were laurel bushes with lavender blooms.

We trudged up the hill and just at the top we met a local cyclist who took some pictures of us coming down the long windy road.

We sailed into Leaky and are staying at the rustic, well-kept, Frio Canyon Lodge. The rooms are delightful. The owner has gone out of his way to help us. Because I have no service on my phone, he has let me use his own personal computer to type the blog and he drove Evelyn a mile and half down the road to the local laundermat.

We are now in the hill country of Texas. Maybe our legs will become as stong as Lance's. We have one huge climb tomorrow and then the steep rollers. We plan to enter Austin on Sunday.
We hope all is well with everyone.

Ruth, Mary Jo, and Evelyn

'The earth laughs in flowers' - Ralph Waldo Emmerson