We had a good rest day in Del Rio. We did laundry and purchased inner tubes at a flaky bike shop. Andrew's father Les delivered Andrew to Del Rio to accompany us to Austin.

We ate collosal breakfasts in Del Rio before starting out. I had the three pancake, three egg, three sausage, three bacon strip breakfast. I got a little lost trying to get out of Del Rio, but Steve got us on track.

I forgot to mention one incident from a few days ago. You may recall our visit to the store/post office at Dryden. The postmaster flagged us down about ten miles later. He had found a sweatshirt in the shop; he drove to catch up with us to see if the shirt belonged to one of us.

We had the usual headwind on our way to Bracketteville. Andrew produced two kinds of smoked sausage at our lunch stop, making himinstantly popular. We saw a vermillion flycatcher (look at one online!) and a baltimore oriole at lunch.

Former Camp Clark at Bracketteville has been converted from old military facility to a gated residential community. The community includes an RV park which offers tentcamping with cold showers. We settled there. The air was warm so the showers weren't too appalling. We bought a load of sausages, some tomatoes and cucumbers and avocados, and some jalapeno peppers and cream cheese. Andrew made jalapeno poppers for an appetizer. We cooked up the sausages and had a fine dinner.

We had cereal and more sausages for breakfast. A cold rain began to fall as we packed up. The sky cleared after a few miles. The road was beautiful. At a break, I noticed a lump in my tire. The tire is coming apart. I put on myspare tire. There's supposed to be a bike shop in Kerrville two days away. I'll hope to buy a new spare there. Tonight we discovered that Andrew has two broken spokes. Too many wheel problems!

We encountered a tragedy today. We saw a deer which had failed to jump clear of the top wire of a fence. Its rear hooves caught between the top two wires and twisted the two wires around the hooves, holding the hooves tight. It was still alive, dangling from the fence. Andrew was the hero of the hour, climbing over the fence to lift the deer enough to release the hooves. The deer scrambled away though we are certain the legs were so damaged that the deer will soon die.

The terrain has changed to a much greener landscape. We're following the Nueces River for now.

Dinner at Two Fat Boys BBQ in Camp Wood.

Dinner at Ft. Clark - a feast

The Nueces River in hill country

Les and Andrew in Del Rio

Jerry's failed tire

Dinner in Camp Wood

New wild flower

Lunch along the road