Slept in just a little this morning but was still able to get biking by 7 a.m. Another overcast day with lots of humidity in the air. Fortunately it was a cool morning at around 58 degrees. Today’s route took me on FM223, FM787 and FM1293 thru the communities of Romayer, near Rye and Votaw, Thicket, Honey Island and finally Kountze. You gotta love the names of these towns.
The roads were decent although the shoulders were narrow with rumble right in the middle. In other words not usable so I had to ride in the main road on the far right. Thankfully there was very little traffic and everyone was very nice about going around me. In fact one fellow stopped at an intersection just to chat with me. He was a cyclist and did Ironman Triathlons. I shared with him that this was my 3rd tour with my first being from Colorado to Ft Worth. He inquired as to where in Colorado did I start. I responded with Lake City … do you know where that is? He said “of course I have a cabin in Creede” Small world!
As I am in the Piney Woods area of South East Texas, there were lots of logging trucks. While no photo of the trucks I did snap some of a small saw mill … boy does fresh sawed pine smell so good!
I came across the Trinity River with traffic over the bridge down to a single lane with an automated stop light system. The Trinity is so much bigger down here than at home.
Surprising to me was there were very long stretches of road, lined with pine trees and nothing else. Very desolate but also very nice riding. Image does show the state of the shoulders along the road.
Finally arrived in Kountze for a 2 night stay. Got a lot of work catching up to do tomorrow.
Status for the day:
