The plan was to put in a 120+ mile ride on Saturday. Friday after work I drove down to New Braunfels to do some road recon. The roads through NB were amazingly less busy and better than Google Earth would have me believe. Passing through Gruene was interesting as well.
The problem was, by the time I got home I could not bring myself to get up at 5-6 AM to hit the road. Putting in so many miles so often is really boring. Plus I’m still recovering from a case of saddle sores, ick. Instead I was up until 6 AM catching up on episodes of Sopranos leading up to the finale. I’m annoyed with the ending, but it’s over, it’s done. It rained that morning so I felt justified in not going riding. Later in the morning and on into the afternoon the rain had cooled everything off and it was still cloudy. It would’ve been a rather nice day to go out riding. blah.
Saturday I went back to Gruene, New Braunfels and San Antonio to do more exploring. Turns out the toobing place we went to on the Guadalupe last year is literally across the river from Gruene. I had no idea until Friday. That would’ve been a swell place to go have dinner after spending all day floating. The thing that impresses me most about Gruene and NB is that both towns are very green. Lots of lush lawns, compartively tall, full trees. Around Austin we tend to have a lot of scrubby evergreens.
Gruene, Texas is a charming little tourist area. Unlike Marfa and Fredricksburg, Gruene is tied to a larger city and there appears to be more interesting things to do. You can go hang out in NB, or you choose to spend all of your time eating/drinking/floating/sleeping in Gruene. All of the town’s attractions are all within a half-mile to mile walk to each other on two main streets. The two days I visited, there were tons of people walking around. I had dinner at Gristmill to try it out. They seem built around herding people in and out as fast as possible; the waitstaff seemed pretty jaded and glazed over from routine. The food was pretty good, I’d recommend it.
Rob’s birthday bash was Saturday night, we hung out there until 2:30 AM or so. I slept in until after noon and didn’t do a lot after. Cleaned, drove out to Dripping Springs, and ultimately wound up at Shady Grove reading Drew Curtis’ “It’s Not News, It’s FARK” book. Now I’m on-call again for another week, blah again. Being on-call is officially old. It’s especially old now since my weeks go by so quickly now.
oh man, Burning Man.
