Lost Maples State Natural Area, TX to Center Point, TX

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Jo and Shawne say...
Day: 42
Mileage Today: 61.4
Total Mileage: 1712.55
Flats Today: 0
Total Flats: 44

We woke up at 5:30 am with plans to escape before the rangers showed up for work. We cooked a quick breakfast of top ramen and pancakes with no butter or syrup. As we were putting breakfast away and packing up, we were a bit louder than we needed to be since our neighbors had been loud, boisterous, and drunk all night. We accidentally-on-purpose dropped the cookset several times, and simply had to shake the dew off the tent...four times. Shawne made some loud comments about how rude it is to walk right through someone else's camp to use the restroom. The neighbors started stirring, and as we were finishing packing, they again walked through our camp several times on the way to the restroom with groggy, hungover faces.
Separate neighbors from across the way came to visit and brought us some coffee. They were very nice, and wanted details about where we were headed for the day and which roads we were taking. If circumstances were different, we would've told them, but considering we were planning on ditching camp without paying, we answered in vague terms like "East" and told them we hadn't looked at our map yet.
We were on the road at 7:00 am, and we faced the first climb as soon as we pulled onto the road outside of camp. We felt a little bad about not paying, so we left five dollars in the self-pay box since we did take showers. We left a note stating we only had traveler's checks, and the office wasn't open to give us any change. We figured, though, that five dollars was a fair price. Twenty-one dollars for a tent site was simply ripping off the public for a place like that.
The mist was heavy, and it clung to the hairs on our arms, turning them white. We could see only about 50 feet in any direction due to the fog, so we took turns leading up the grade. Shawne's taillights are very bright, so when he disappeared into the fog ahead of Jo, she was still comforted by the flash of his lights cutting through the fog ahead.
Every vehicle that passed, we assumed was a ranger tracking us down for only paying five dollars. Jo says the state of Texas is exploiting a natural resource by commanding such outrageous prices to see the maple tree's Fall colors. Then again, she reasoned, look at what it costs to camp in Yellowstone or Yosemite. Perhaps it's just an ugly part of the world we live in.
We climbed several more passes, which weren't bad, the fog still hanging low. We really enjoyed the ride. The roads were wet, and we watched our front tires as a river of water coursed over them and splashed back down onto the road. We'd been told this was the most beautiful road in the area, but even after the fog lifted, it resembled every other road we'd been on for days. We stopped and ate the last of our food - peanut butter and jelly sandwiches again topped with cereal, and one powerbar.
After many sweeping downhills and short, tough uphills, we found ourselves on pretty level ground riding next to a beautiful river. There were maple trees everywhere, shedding their spring growth, and we were truly impressed by the vivid colors surrounding us. Shawne told Jo that as a child, his parents told him that if he caught a falling leaf from a tree, he could make a wish. He said he remembers his parents taking him to see the leaves change in the Fall, and he'd run around, trying to catch leaves, until he was completely exhausted. He said he's convinced it was a parental ploy just to wear him out.
We'd been alternately following and crossing the Guadalupe River. It was shallow and clear with single lane bridges just over the water. Signs warned to look for water over the road with every small dip in the pavement. Most had flood level gauges marking up to six feet of water. Some were in very unlikely places, at the tops of the hills, and we wondered how the water could possibly get that high.
We passed by some large, beautiful estates, and then saw a fence which demanded further inspection. The fence surrounded a beautiful meadow. Goats peacefully grazed within it's borders. The fence itself, however, was what fascinated us. A cowboy boot had been slipped onto the top of nearly every post. The fence must have encompassed about thirty acres! We stopped our bikes and went over to the fence for a photo. A little white goat with nubby horns was trying his hardest to reach one of the boots. He stretched himself as tall as he could, trying to sample the leather treat. We were laughing at his antics when he decided we were as interesting as the boots. He bounced over to us and slipped his head through the fence to visit.
We petted his head, but when he tried to pull it back, but he was stuck! He tried and tried to pull it back through to no avail. Jo tried to coax him so his head was in the right spot to loose himself, but since he was just a kid, he'd get anxious and slam his head against the fence over and over again. She didn't want to get her fingers caught between his horns and the fence while he struggled, so she told Shawne she'd go to the farmer's house and solicit assistance. Shawne decided to give it a try before telling the farmer, so he spent a full ten minutes talking to the kid and getting him to turn his head one way or another. Finally, he slipped his head back through and we both cheered. As we were riding away, we looked back at him, and we laughed that it would probably only take half an hour until he got stuck again.
We came across a tree which had a limb cut off of it some time ago. It looked as if a cat were climbing the tree!
In Hunt, the restaurant was closed because it was a Monday. We stopped and ate chicken fried steak for six dollars a piece at the general store. There, we learned that Kinky Friedman, who is running for governor, is a wildly eccentric "Jewish Cowboy". We've seen signs posted in yards for hundreds of miles, but with no picture of this man. His campaign signs simply have an abstract of his face. Here, we saw a picture of him, a mustached man wearing a beaded gown and flipping off the camera. He sounded interesting, and we figured we would've voted for him!
After lunch, we travelled through more groves of maple trees. Red leaves rained on us as we rode, and going down one hill, Shawne put out his hand...and caught a falling leaf! We whooped in triumph all the way down the hill. He held his leaf high in the air, and we stopped at the bottom to rejoice in his success. Jo took a picture of him with his leaf, and he closed his eyes and silently made his wish. Then he tucked his leaf into Jo's back bag for safe keeping.
We flew through Ingram and into Kerrville. The roads were smooth and the scenery was breathtaking. Kerrville is a city of around 20,000 people, and naturally, the traffic started picking up. We stopped to look at the map, convinced we'd missed our turn. In the parking lot where we were stopped, there was a giant barbeque. Not just your average, run of the mill, giant barbeque, this was the biggest barbeque in the world! It was a giant red big rig, and the entire monstrosity was a barbequeing machine complete with beer taps on the side. It had a Maalox advertisement on it's side (ha ha, appropriate!) and decorative steel Texas emblems everywhere. There were even skull coverings on the taillights, and a platform to walk along each of it's twenty-four ovens. A large catch for the ashes donned the rear, and we assumed there was a blower down the middle of the trailer.
We hurried on to the bike shop on Water Street. Once there, we found that the couple who own the place did "a lap" around the world on bicycles. It cost them $25,000, including airfare, to stay on the road for three years. THREE YEARS! We were impressed. We bought some brake pads and one new set of cleats for Jo's shoes. The owner gave us a used (but not used up) pair of cleats for free to help Shawne out.
We heard that Kerrville-Schreiner State Park was no longer a state park, but was now owned by the county. We stopped in to check our the camping situation. They wanted fifteen dollars to pitch a tent! I called the campground in Comfort, TX, which was the next town, and they wanted sixteen dollars! We decided to stealth it.
As we rode, we found the Wharton cemetery we'd read about the other day. Sure enough, there was a giant oak tree which was still living, and buried beneath it were Mr. Wharton and his wife, Thankful Wharton. It was their request to be buried beneath this, their favorite tree, and we were amazed that this incredibly old oak tree was still living. This was truly a family plot. The Wharton family has continually been buried there for 150 years, and the decendants still care for the property. They are currently replacing old headstones, and it was interesting to see new headstones with dates of death listed as 1885. We found several places to stealth camp, but they weren't anything to write home about. We stopped once and were looking through an open gate into a grassy field beyond when a day-rider caught up to us and asked if we needed help.
"No, just looking for a place to camp," Shawne said.
The day-rider said, "Well, the gate's open, and I never saw you! But there's some better places down by the river if you go about another mile."
We took his advice, but only found one rocky road which led down to an area that had a lot of standing water...and a lot of mosquitos. We thought we'd see what Center Point, TX, had to offer before camping on that road, so we heaved the bikes back up the rocky road and onto pavement.
We entered Center Point to find peacocks sitting on the steps of a house in the midst of a renovation. We rode through town, but found no promising camping opportunities. We again crossed the Guadalupe River and found a public park on the right, with a small boat launch above the dam. There were no signs forbidding us to camp there, so we chose an area in the back of the park, closest to the trees.
We laid out the tent, but didn't set it up until dark. We fired up the stove and cooked some frozed, crispy chicken. Last time we did this was in the desert, and the chicken had thawed by the time we reached camp. This time our efforts were pretty unsuccessful. It was cold out, and we'd picked up the chicken in Kerrville, so it was still frozen.
Jo says it was like cooking marshmallows over an open fire. We fried it until it was almost burned, then we'd eat off the very outside layer and throw it back in the pan to cook again. It took a very long time to eat, but we decided it was rather amusing. We threw the bones into the field behind us and watched as a ferel black cat hurried to retrieve them.
Once it was dark, we finished setting up camp, then went to the road to survey our handiwork. We hoped our camp was invisible to drivers passing by.
"It just looks like two rocks!" Shawne said, relieved.
"Yeah, it really does!" Jo agreed readily.
Shawne said, "The bikes will reflect, though, with light on them. He turned on the flashlight, and the reflectors on the bikes shone...but not where Jo expected them to be. She hadn't been looking at the tent at all...she really WAS looking at two rocks!
Jo called her parents and sang them the song that Shawne wrote as a tribute to Texas hunters on game farms...it goes like this...
"I'll pay three hundred dollars to sit in your deer blind
Drink me a twelve pack; I don't get one, I don't mind
Squeeze off a few rounds so it sounds like I'm doin' good
Run into town for more Coors Light and firewood
Ridin' my quad with a pallet of Deer Corn
Toppin' off feeders and lookin' at girl porn
Just wanna get away from the kids and the wife
Out here in the rain 'n cold
AIN'T THIS A GOOD LIFE?"
Jo's parents laughed heartily, then we hung up and settled into 'earplug and sleepy time'.

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Photos

Cat in a tree
But, the cat is the tree.....ooooh! ahhh!

Shawne makes a wish.
Shawne caught this leaf while riding down the road, so he gets a wish!

The little goat has his head stuck!
Shawne had to rescue it.

The Biggest BBQ in the WORLD!
This thing is huge!