Big Red's Bicycle Tours: DAY 1 - WARDA, TX TO BASTROP, TX

Mileage - 35.7; Total Mileage - 35.7 miles

We enjoyed our stay at Warda last night. There were several other groups camping around the pond, including a group of Boy Scouts. We camped across from the pond from them to avoid any noise, but they were not up late and I didn't hear them at all after about 9pm.

Field with Longhorns at Bluff Creek Ranch (Warda)

Our camp last night by the pond. Reba didn't bother with a tent and just slept in her van while she could! Dave's great campfire.

We were packed up and on the road at an unheard-of time of 9am this morning. It was pretty windy all afternoon and night, and the wind started up before we left Warda. It was mostly blowing out of the SE, and our general direction for today was west and north.

We had some areas with great tailwinds, and also had areas headed more into the wind. Overall none of it was too bad.

We stopped briefly in Winchester about 10 miles into the ride. There wasn't much there and the steakhouse was closed on Sunday, so we started heading out of town. Right as we got to the edve of town rwe saw the Zilss Memorial Hall and found information about the Quilt BlockTrail. The quilt blocks are mounted on buildings, barns, and houses. There were maps detailing 50 different designs that can all be found between Giddings, TX and Smithville, TX.

We decided we'd have to wait for another time to track all of them down. As we left town we saw several more designs as we passed more houses and barns.

The terrain was mostly rolling with small hills as we headed for Bastrop. We had to ride on Hwy 71 for a few miles to get to some restaurants we thought would be good for lunch. Hwy 71 is a 4-lane divided road with a very wide shoulder. It was good as far as that, but was very busy and noisy with cars.

There weren't really any other good options for that section because there are limited roads that cross the Colorado River. There were two restaurants next door to each other at about 22 miles into the day. One was a Mexican Restaurant and one was a Café. We decided on the café, parked, and went in. Well, surprise! The café's menu was almost all Mexican food. So that's what we had for lunch! 😆

After lunch we got back on Hwy 71 for another 3 miles until we could turn off onto backroads that would take us straight into Bastrop State Park which is our home tonight. We knew we only had about 10 miles left and we were enjoying the quiet roads.

Then it got hard. The last 5 miles were through a neighborhood alongside a golf course. It didn't start out too bad, but then there were multiple very steep hills in the last 3 miles that had all of us in granny gear and barely making the climbs.

One was really steep, and we were all walking. And then it got steeper! It was so steep it was almost impossible to walk and push the loaded bikes. When we got to the top we took a quick break in the shade of someone's driveway before heading out to tackle the last couple miles. Fortunately, that was the worst and everything after that was so steep going down that we were able to coast to the top of the next with only a few pedal strokes. I hit 35 mph on one decent through there.

We saw lots of wildflowers today. The one we saw the most today was Indian Blankets. They are a pretty red/orange color and were all beside the road.