The theme for today seemed to be Texas hospitality.   I've refrained from 'messing' with Texas and today the state and its inhabitants showed how gracious they can be.

First, we woke up to delightfully cool temperatures.  The folks at Lala's Mexican restaurant,  where we were directed to have breakfast, said the overnight low was 49F.  Barb even pulled on her long sleeves to start the day.  We were treated to a beautiful sunrise over the hills that were so challenging to climb yesterday.

The folks at Lala's served up a great breakfast with multiple refills on coffee.  They serve traditional Mexican fare,  but the folks at the Hog Pen had highly recommended the pancakes, so we each had a pancake with two eggs and a side of ham or sausage.  It was delicious.

Leaving Leakey, the road rose only very gradually, letting us warm up our legs before the real climb started.  When climbing in earnest began it was at a slightly lower grade than yesterday's climbs, and while we stopped occasionally for photos and to catch our breath, we never felt the need to dismount and begin push the bikes.  The grade gradually increased, but whether it as Lala's pancakes, the cool temps, the easy warm up, or just a combined effect, we summitted without ever having to push the bikes.  I went back this afternoon and checkeded grades and we were actually pedaling up sections with a 14% grade. So we're proud of ourselves tonight and feeling satisfied.

After such a climb,  the following downhill is often a steep descent that has you squeezing the break levers to maintain control of your speed.  But today after a short steep section, the downhill grade lessened and we were treated to a long gradual descent that brought us close to Camp Wood.

At Camp Wood we decided to stop for a brief bite to eat,  since we had told Alice Rogers,  our warmshowers host in Montell that we'd probably arrive about 2 pm.  So we stopped in a local Mexican restaurant and ordered a light lunch.  While we were eating, a party of a couple with their young child and another gentleman sat down to eat at the adjacent table.  They had obviously seen touring cyclists before and struck up a conversation asking the standard questions.   Where are you going? Where did you start? Where do you stay at night?  Which is where things got interesting.   We told them that we were staying with a warmshowers host in Montell.  The older gentleman asked who, and when we said Alice Rogers, the man said to tell her hello from Dennis Berry.  Turns out that they are old acquaintances, though Dennis has spent many years in the Galveston area. Then he wanted to know how many calories we'd burned coming over the day's climb.  As we fumbled for a reasonable answer, he insisted on buying us lunch.   Texas hospitality in fine form.

We said goodbye, and were wished safe travels and started down the road.  We'd gotten only a few miles out of town,  when Jake, the young cyclist we'd last seen the day before we arrived in Austin caught up to us.  He was doing well, and had spent time with his cousin in Austin. He was looking fit, well, and happy.  He relaxed and spent the next 6 miles riding with us until we reached Montell.  His goal was to reach Del Rio today, and had 50 or more miles to cover.  We bid him well, and while we headed for Alice Rogers home, Jake headed down the road.

Alice lives in a lovely remodeled home that her mother had lived in.  You can tell as you pull in the drive that she loves to entertain and have fun with friends.  A patio, shaded by a group of live oaks, occupies much the entry way.  She invited us to sit down and brought us water while we introduced ourselves.  Alice is a registered nurse, serving a local hospital as a Clinical Information Specialist.   But she is fully occupied enjoying life with her many friends.  She gave us a quick tour of her home,  including supper that was leftover beef bourguignon from a dinner party last night.  There are flowers in vases around the kitchen that say Happy Birthday, so we suspect that she interrupted her birthday party to respond to our warmshowers request.  Alice explained that she had plans with friends this afternoon, so she insisted that we make ourselves at home.  Soon her friends arrived and she bid us to enjoy our stay and that she would see us later this evening or tomorrow morning.

Barb and I are now stuffed full of delicious food accompanied with a few glasses of wine and are ready to sleep.

It's been a wonderful day with Texas hospitality on full display.