El Camino Real Tour Update - October 24, 2005

Pearsall to downtown San Antonio
During the night a cold front blew in. Morning started rainy and 45 degrees. What’s the deal? For months I’m praying for the heat to break. It wasn’t a record summer but it started early and persisted. And now I’m freezing – my ungrateful body not appreciating that there is another season other than 100+ degrees. But Frank and I get through it – the rain stops and the sun comes out. We follow the access roads along I-35 watching the endless parade of trucks and trains hauling stuff in from Mexico. Only a few local vehicles on the access roads – very easy riding.

At Devine, old US 81 veers off into town and we find the breakfast from heaven – huevos rancheros – hard to resist when available – great homemade tortillas and all for only $2.99! We chat with a really nice retired law enforcement officer who reminds us that bicycles are vehicles under Texas law. Exactly what we have been preaching, “with all of the rights and responsibilities.”

We meet Mikail up the road, back from delivering Blake to Austin and dealing with the electrical problem (for your info, trailers have notoriously poor wiring underneath that is easily damaged and shorts out on the frame – we figured it out – not the dealership Mikail visited.) Mikail feeds us a great pasta that he made back in Austin and we continue into San Antonio from the southwest down SH 132, Old Pearsall Road and FM 2536 over the rise to view all of San Antonio near the old Kelly AFB, then New Laredo Road (now old since construction of the I-35 interstate in the 1960’s.) and Nogalitos all the way into downtown.

Just south of downtown San Antonio there is a residential riverwalk near the King William area that nobody knows. It is beautifully built and landscaped and, unlike the downtown river walk, there are no tourists there. After a few pictures, we travel the Flores Street (flowers in Spanish) bike route through downtown to San Pedro Park.

That evening, our wonderful friends Holly and Kate take us out to dinner at The Olive Garden where our waitperson, an unusually good saleswoman, works us over good – pretty good time for all of us. Kate shows me her new touring bike so I have a new convert to join me on future outings. We are staying at Holly and Kate’s for the next two nights.

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