Day 70 Amistad Reservoir to Del Rio 16 Miles

11/8/2014

When the endless rain of biblical proportions finally ceased, I welcomed the sun like an old friend. Oh how I missed the sun. The damp clothes had begun to pile up in the trailer. I even thought I caught the scent of mildew. Luckily I was wrong, it was the scent of sweat and rainwater: which was just as bad if not worse. The sun was the remedy that would make everything better.

Waking up at the Holiday Trav-L-Park was very relaxing. The green trees gave the place plenty of life. Instead of having breakfast as usual, I delayed my morning meal to look at the lake. I did however have a hot chocolate. Despite the many days of missed posts, due to the lack of signal, I took my time updating my travel journal. Crystal and I shoveled four loads of dirty, wet, and smelly clothes into the machines. It was obviously going to be a day of organization. Perhaps reaching Bracket was out of the question. It was still forty miles away and the list of chores was long.

While Crystal organized the cupboards, I took a moment to look under the trailer. Apparently the wheels could kick water into the bottom storage compartment. This was the main storage space for our thousands of books. Had I waited much longer to check underneath, some of the books would wabeen water damaged. It was fortunate the dampness had not yet soaked through the cardboard. We barely salvaged books. There were maybe two or three casualties.

When the clothes finished drying and I had sufficient food in my stomach, I took off for Del Rio. As my feet hit the pavement, the sunshine kissed my face. It was a much different sky from the dark days past. The clear blue sky the landscape and the lake came together to make up some picturesque scenery.

Crystal and I met at a Walmart on the edge of town. We consumed all the detergent and Crystal needed a new bicycle tube. When I found her, she had just finished filling the gas tank at $2.65 a gallon. Wow! I was happy the first time we saw the price under $3.00. I had forgotten what being in a city was like and I had forgotten what walking around a store like Walmart was like. It was a huge maze.

After working up an appetite fighting off the masses, Crystal spotted a Pizza Hut close by and she headed straight for it. She had our brochure of events, a set of books, and a stack of stickers. After Crystal away some of our very cute items we were given the royal treatment. Not only did we receive a pizza, it was large and filled with veggies, we also ate from the salad bar and we were given drinks. I looked up after eating and chatting with everyone inside. The time had somehow disappeared. The clock approached 5:30 PM. We wrapped our leftovers, said goodbye to Adan and Irvin, then hit the road.

Night was creeping up once again so I ran in a higher gear. I ignored the jalapenos burning a hole in my chest and I tore through the city. The light burned out way before my body was ready to pack it in but the motorists in this city were not joke. I had already seen two pedestrians clipped by cars (TWO), and this was in broad daylight. Maybe it was a good time to relax. There was nothing lost by calling the day early.