Today started with a very relaxed breakfast in the company and the gracious hospitality of our warmshowers host, Alice Rogers.  As the sun is rising later each morning, Barb and I had agreed we could delay our waking alarm by 30 minutes to 6:30.

By the time we emerged, dressed and packed, Alice was already up with coffee brewing and breakfast preparations underway.  We chatted genially while sipping good coffee as Alice fried bacon, delicious homemade Axis deer sausage, and a dressed-up batch of scrambled eggs.   Over breakfast we heard about some of her adventures canoeing the Rio Grande in the Big Bend wilderness,  discussed birds at her feeders, hunting doves in Texas,  and just generally having fun.  Alice is wonderful and entertaining,  and with 40 service-less miles ahead of us, we weren't in any hurry to leave the comfort and warmth of her home.

I think it was about 8:30 when thanked her and she wished us well in our adventure, but frankly we weren't watching the time.  The sun  was up, the temperatures cool and were were entranced with the beauty of the  sunshine on the west Texas hills.

The morning turned into a nature ride.  Alice had said that the countryside would always show us something, if we were simply observant.  There were small purple and red wildflowers blossoming in the grass along the road.  Birds seemed to be every where.  We spotted American kestrels, caracaras, scissor-tailed flycatchers, a Bewick's wren, and immature golden eagles in the span of an hour.

Traffic was light, and our only hindrance was the rough surface of the road.  Many of the west Texas roads have been surface treated with a tar and half-inch rock coating that is probably advantageous for the varied weather here, but is less than ideal for a riding surface.  We typically take breaks to relieve numb hands and tired butts about every 5-10 miles.

Shortly after one such break, a US Border Patrol vehicle approached from before us and slowed to a stop to chat.  How were we doing? Fine.  Need water? No, we have plenty.  Where are you heading?  Brackettville next, San Diego eventually.  Where are you staying?  Hotels, RV parks and camping sites, some homes.  Are you packing heat?  No, just trying to be observant and stay safe.  Well, please don't just camp beside the road here in between towns, and please don't camp under the bridges. No, sir.  We'll only stay in established sites.   OK, have a great trip.  Then he was off on patrol.  We're pretty sure that border patrol agents for the next hundred miles have been alerted of our presence on the road, and will be there trying to assures us safe passage.  We appreciate their inquiries and concern, and will do everything we can to make everyone's  life easy.

We arrived in Brackettville about 12:30, and by the time we picked up more gatorade and supplies, and had eaten lunch at a local restaurant it was almost 2 pm.  We have 32 no-service miles ahead of us and decided to call it a day.

So tonight we're staying at the Fort Clark hotel, in what we're sure are remodeled historic barracks of a fort established in 1852.

Tomorrow we'll be up and heading west on US 90.  We plan on being at an RV park just west of Comstock tomorrow.

They don't call it an adventure for nothing.