Easter Hill Country Tour 2007
Category: Cycling/Running/Fitness... Food... Nature... Travel...
Posted Friday, April 13, 2007 at 09:41 PM [GMT-6]

For the past 20+ years, we've spent Easter weekend in the Fredericksburg/Kerrville area of the Texas Hill Country, participating in the aptly named Easter Hill Country Tour, a bicycling event jointly sponsored by the bike clubs of Fort Worth, Lubbock, San Antonio, and Houston. This year's event was the 34th annual tour, and will go down in history as one of the most interesting, thanks primarily to the wintry weather conditions.

Over the years, as we've, um, matured (read: grown wiser), this event has become less about the bicycling and more about enjoying our time together. In the beginning, we were avid (read: stupid) cyclists and rode a couple of centuries -- or, to the uninitiated, 100 mile rides completed in one day. I'm sure there are more difficult feats that the average non-athlete could attempt, but I'm not interested in confirming it.

Nowadays, if we ride 100 miles in three days we're quite pleased with ourselves, and we've found that we can eat just as much -- the real reason people cycle -- plus there's the added bonus of actually being able and willing to get back on the bike without waiting a month.

However, this year's trip holds the distinction of providing the lowest cycling/driving mileage ratio of any that we've taken: almost 800 miles of driving in order to ride 42.4 miles on a bike. More on that later.

Because I'm such a considerate and thoughtful host (read: OCD), I've organized this report into sections, and you can use the following links to skip to the one(s) you find potentially interesting. (I've not, however, provided a link to the bottom of the post so that you can skip the whole thing. Shame on you for even thinking that.)

Sections: The Riding | The Eating | The Bedding & Breakfasting | The Nature Gazing

The Riding

As with most EHCTs, the schedule for the three day weekend consisted of several routes on Friday leaving from Fredericksburg, several routes on Saturday (including the traditional century) leaving from Kerrville, and a couple of relatively short rides on Sunday morning to wrap things up.

We normally try to arrive on Wednesday afternoon in order to do a self-guided ride on Thursday, but MLB's work schedule didn't allow us to leave until Thursday after lunch. Thus we weren't able to get on the bike until Friday morning around 10:30, when we departed from the Fredericksburg courthouse and headed north out of town. Our route took us up Lower Crabapple Road, then to the west within glimpsing distance of the amazing Enchanted Rock, and finally back south into town on the Old Mason Highway until it met up with Highway 87. We could have stretched the route to almost 60 miles with various optional additions, but since our tandem training mileage this year totaled on 130 miles, and despite our realization that the weather forecast didn't bode well for the rest of the weekend, we decided that discretion was the better part of valor.

The ride was enjoyably challenging, hard enough to feel a sense of accomplishment without ever having to resort to on-bike crying (never a good sign). We rode all the hills (not everyone did, but being 70 years old is always a valid excuse in my book), and had some interesting conversations at the rest stops. Our recumbent tandem usually guarantees that we'll get to visit with a few people who are fascinated by the contraption.

We finished the ride feeling as though we could have gone further, but not regretting stopping when we did, particularly since the clouds were beginning to thicken, a precursor to the front that was about to hammer all of Texas.

Here are a few photos snapped by MLB from the back of the bike during the ride; click to view a full-sized uncropped version. From left to right: a view of Enchanted Rock on the steep downhill section of Welgehausen Road, just west of Hwy 965; bluebonnets along Welgehausen Road; more bluebonnets.

The Eating

"Eat to ride. Ride to Eat." That's the cyclist's mantra, and it works remarkably well, even when moderation is exercised on neither account.

Fredericksburg is home to some excellent restaurants, and even though our stay was shorter than usual, we made sure to patronize two of them. We ate dinner Friday night at the restaurant at the Fredericksburg Herb Farm, a cozy little eatery surrounded by all manner of flora, much of which makes it into the dishes the chef prepares.

We took a chance and walked in without reservations -- we tried to call ahead but our cell phones weren't playing well with the local service -- and waited while the hostess consulted with the chef to make sure we were worthy of the honor. I assume we looked sufficiently solvent, and so we were seated, and at one of the prime tables at that. Never underestimate the value of wearing a Fire Ant Gazette hoodie into the finest dining establishments. (Kidding. Really.)

MLB had a fine talapia cooked en papillote, prepared with "Mexican herbs" and served with green rice. Muy delicioso.

Not to be outdone, I had one of the off-menu specials, something you don't normally find in a sit-down restaurant with white linen tablecloths: cabrito. I'm here to tell you that if you ever have a chance to eat cabrito in that setting, don't pass it up. I didn't catch the waitress's explanation of the herbs used in the preparation, despite asking her to repeat it (there was something about "root beer flavor, but very mild"), but that was the best goat I've ever eaten, falling-off-the-bone tender and juicy in that way that only cabrito can be. Normally, Abbye would have benefited from a few carryout scraps, but she was out of luck that night. (I'd ask you not to tell her, but she sniffed my fingers as soon as we got home, and she knew. She's still not speaking to me.)

The only disappointment of the evening was dessert (and, really, that's major). We split a serving of Lemon Verbena Peach Cobbler (with homemade vanilla bean ice cream), and it wasn't up to the restaurant's usual standards. Of course, the last time we had their peach cobbler, it was in the middle of peach season so the fruit was fresh off the tree. Still, the crust was too doughy, and the lemon verbena was...weird. I don't recommend it (but if they have plain cobbler during the summer, go for it).

Pricing? Ooh, you don't want to know. We were pushing $100 and that was without wine.

Our dining destination Saturday night was our Plan B from Friday, in case we were turned away. Pasta Bella serves some of the best Italian food around, and it's a gem of a find right in the middle of this German community. There's nothing fancy here, just basic pasta dishes, and the usual parmigiana entrées. Again, we arrived without reservations, and we did have a short wait, but it was worth it. Normally on a Saturday night, you'd want to call ahead, but keep in mind that we were out in the middle of an ice storm, and that kept the crowd down a bit.

The food was typically good, tasty and filling, and much more reasonably priced than the night before. We were too full for dessert, and the total check was around $20.

Now, since we stayed in a bed-and-breakfast, you're probably wondering about our morning meals. I can sum them up in one word: awesome. I'll tell you more about the B&B a bit later, but I can tell you that the family that owns this one also owns another one on the other side of F'burg, managed by their son and daughter-in-law, and they both pride themselves on their excellent breakfasts. We've stayed in B&Bs where "breakfast" was a couple of cold muffins left on the kitchen table the night before, and whatever you could find in the mini-fridge.

This place, on the other hand, delivered a full hot breakfast each morning. Day one was an oven pancake, bacon (cleverly folded in a way to resemble flowers) and fresh fruit; day two was baked (!) eggs, sausage, made-from-scratch biscuits and fresh fruit in yogurt dressing; day three was a breakfast casserole (eggs, sausage, cheese, bread and mushrooms) and more fruit. We boxed up half the casserole and had it leftover when we returned to Midland -- the servings were not skimpy.

Earlier, I computed our driving-to-cycling mileage, because I'm a numbers guy, like it or not. However, I refuse to calculate (or even think about) our calories-consumed-to-cycling-mileage.

The Bedding and Breakfasting

Well, I've already covered the Breakfasting, but here's the skinny on the accommodations. The B&B is called Clear Springs Log Cabin, and it's owned and operated by Vernon and Bernice Fluitt (their son and his wife, Nelson and Sharon, manage another excellent B&B called the Country Quiet Guesthouse, which we also recommend highly). Clear Springs is located on a working ranch eight miles north of F'burg on Highway 16, and the main living area of the house was built in the 1850s. It served many years as a barn, but the Fluitts recently made it over into a B&B, adding a bedroom, bathroom, central heat and air, and other modern amenities.

The walls of the log cabin are at least twelve inches thick, highly reminiscent of adobe buildings found throughout west Texas. One section of the original log-and-mortar has been preserved behind glass (see image at right; click for a larger version), but the remainder of the walls have been re-mortared. We found the room to be pretty well insulated, but the HVAC system was also quite effective in dealing with any shortcomings in that area.

The bedroom is equipped with a very comfortable queen-sized bed. However, the room is lacking in storage space, especially for hanging clothes. The large antique wardrobe is more for show than function and will accommodate only three or four hangars.

The bathroom is very spacious, with a large jacuzzi tub (no shower, but the tub has a gooseneck spigot that's a fair compromise) and the only deer antler toilet paper holder I've ever seen. In fact, antlers were used everywhere in place of towel racks.

The kitchen is functional, but not luxurious, although the fridge appears new and works very well. There's no oven, but there is a stove, a microwave, and a countertop toaster/convection oven. We used only the fridge, microwave and coffeemaker. This was, after all, a vacation.

The weather wasn't exactly cooperative -- more about that below -- but the compound has several places that would be wonderful for al fresco coffee and snacks or book reading (a euphemism for napping, of course) in more temperate conditions.

I mentioned that this is a working ranch, and it's thus replete with the typical farm fauna: cattle, chickens, horses, geese -- and, of course, llamas. It's also got a couple of ponds, at least one of which is apparently stocked for fishing, if you care about such things.

It's also very, very quiet. Even though Highway 16 is a very busy road, the B&B is located more than a mile down an unpaved road (and over a couple of hills), and there are no neighbors within sight, other than the hosts' home (which is a couple hundred yards away). The log cabin has its own fenced yard, great for pets (although if you have a dog that doubles as an escape artist, you'll want to keep it leashed), and is imaginatively landscaped.

The Nature Gazing

The same vicious cold front that blasted much of the nation also dropped down into the Hill Country, with the worst weather blowing in early Saturday morning in the form of rain, sleet, and a bit of snow. Sunday morning's view of the woods surrounding the B&B was punctuated with breaking limbs falling under the weight of the ice, although most of what I saw were from the dead trees that polka-dot the landscape thanks to a recent onslaught of oak wilt throughout the Hill Country.

In the wee hours of Sunday morning, we were awakened by total silence combined with complete darkness. Funny how that works, isn't it? We never got an explanation of the power outage, but it lasted only a couple of hours, and it gave us an excuse to snuggle deeper under the blankets.

We discussed the outage with Vernon when he brought breakfast. He said that as soon as the power went off, he called the power company, and he and his wife started worrying about how it might impact us. Bernice was worried about how she'd fix our breakfast; Vernon wasn't worried about that as much as how we flush the toilet (the water system relies on electric pumps). I guess it's a guy thing, but that's also one of the first things that occurred to me at 3:00 a.m. when the power first went out.

Here are a few photos capturing the cold beauty of weather's aftereffects. Click on the thumbnails to view larger uncropped versions. Note the ice on the back of the reclining llama in the third photo. Think those guys aren't protected by their fur?

We had one final weather-related challenge, and that was driving through the ranch and back to the highway for the trip home. With our bike on top of the SUV we need about 12 feet of clearance, and the ice weighted the tree limbs lining the dirt road to the point where I was weaving like a drunken driver, trying to thread my way past the lowest branches while avoiding getting stuck in the bar ditch. Fortunately, I've had plenty of practice at this since That Thing Happened and we made a clean getaway.

Despite not getting in our usual quota of bicycling, this was a weekend to remember -- and almost all of the memories will be good ones. It's hard to ask for more than that.