Day 2
Wednesday, April 5, 2006
Kenedy, TX to Kingsville, TX
105 Miles
Strangely, I felt better this morning than I had on either of the two previous trips. My legs felt strong and I felt as though I'd had plenty of sleep. I don't know why, but I had absolutely no trouble getting up and heading out.
Frank didn't roll out with us this morning. He had seriously bruised his knee in yesterday's ride, and decided that he'd try to rest it and ride with us tomorrow.
We left the hotel parking lot at 6:00 AM, straight into a 20 MPH headwind. This was quite disappointing, because both Craig and I considered the first half of this second day's ride to be the best part each of the previous two years. In both years, the wind was calm, it was cool, there was little traffic, and although there are some hills there is more downhill than up. This year was just work: under 10 MPH going up the hills, and having to pedal in order to maintain 12 MPH going down.
Kuni and Michelle caught up with us after about an hour, right before we stopped at our little picnic area outside of Pettus. We ate a snack, turned off the lights, refilled water bottles, and headed out. We stopped again about an hour later in Beeville at the rebuilt store where Craig and I stopped the first year.
By this time the wind had picked up to above 20 MPH, and neither Craig nor I was terribly interested in bucking it for the next 70 miles, especially since it was forecast to be 30 MPH or higher by the time we got to Kingsville. Figuring that we had nothing to prove, and wanting to save some energy for tomorrow's ride, we packed it in after 40 miles. We had a little bite to eat at the Dairy Queen in Skidmore, and then packed the bikes into the truck and headed for the hotel in Kingsville.
It felt good to relax in Kingsville, take a nap, and enjoy a very good dinner at El Tapatio. We got everything ready for the next day and were in bed early. Weather forecast for the next day was winds above 30 MPH, with gusts at 35. We were not looking forward to that.