Stats so far

Miles: 1,495 mi
Climbing: 32,493 ft
Time in the Saddle: 104h 26m
Times pee’d in the bushes: near infinite

John and I spent our rest day together in Fredeicksburg, Tx along with my wonderful wife Kirsten, not to be confused with another Kirsten that is on this trip. It is a rest day and our goal is to keep the blog short and sweet. That is the goal, but I don’t think we have ever achieved it, so here we go again.

We had already gotten our laundry done yesterday, which meant today we were completely free — no chores, no errands, just a true rest day. On rest days we’re also on our own for meals, which worked out perfectly. Since all three of us love breakfast but are very much not morning people, we collectively decided that brunch is just breakfast with better timing. John found a lovely spot called Sunset Grill, and it did not disappoint. Biscuits, brie, fig, avocado — all in perfectly balanced proportions. We lingered, ate slowly, and enjoyed the rare luxury of good food and unhurried time together. As John said (and Kirsten and I immediately agreed), it’s pretty great having cousins you’d choose as friends anyway.

John and I have made a habit of bringing treats to the bike wash and maintenance time at 3:30 on rest days. John found amazing dark and milk chocolate covered salted caramels and I found some churro chips. Bikes were washed and maintained and treats were eaten… success.

Going to sound repetitive, but John, Kirsten and I went to Hill & Vine for dinner and everything looked so good we ordered a bunch of appetizers and one entree and shared it all family style. The food was lovely and matched the conversation. We should have never looked at the dessert menu because sure enough there were Roadside Fried Pies that we HAD to get…. they were so good.

We ended the night with our 7:30 briefing on the week ahead from our fearless tour leader Dennis.

Tomorrow we are back to “Riding our bikes across the country!!!” and savoring every minute of it like fine food.