Days 11-15

Alright everyone, we finally have a computer to post with so we have a lot of catching up to do I'll give a little day by day run down here.

Day 11
On day 11 we rode from Marshall to Mineola, TX. It was a short day at only 82 miles but we reached our 1000 mile mark! We stayed at a bed & breakfast that was incredibly nice and had the best homemade chocolate chip cookies I've ever had. It was called the Fall Farms Country Inn and if you ever find yourself in the area I would highly recommend it (although I'm not sure most of you ever will). Even everyone we met there was incredibly nice. The Falls (the man & woman who ran and owned the place) actually let us borrow their car to go get food for dinner because all the restaurants were over 5 miles away. Also we met a group of sister's that were also staying there that were incredibly nice and are now actually blog readers. Staying at this romantic little b&b did present one problem though, only one giant bed in the room. We also had a tv room attached to our room so I slept on the pullout in there. We had another surprise when we were out picking up dinner and looked for somewhere to pick up a six-pack to celebrate reaching 1000 miles. It turned out the closest place was about 20 miles away, that was a bit of a shock.

Day 12
On day 12 we left the b&b bright and early to head to Dallas to meet my dad who came down to spend a night with us. On the day that we really wanted to get there early it seemed like everything was against us. Somehow Chris got two flats (our first ones of the trip) and we had a small directions mishap that sent us about 12 miles out of the way. We must have been really excited to get there though because the 96 mile day brought our moving average up to 13.7 miles per hour. It was great to see my dad and we got an incredible dinner at Del Frisco's (a local steakhouse). We also visited a few bars in the area and had a good time that night.

Day 13
We finally had a rest day! We were incredibly lazy and spent most of the day sleeping. I did have to get on the bike for about ten miles to go pick up some much needed parts at a local bike shop, however Chris couldn't come because he managed to get another flat without leaving the hotel room by snapping the valve stem off his tube.

Day 14
On day 14 we left civilization and headed out of Dallas to Jacksboro, TX. The total mileage for the day was just under 100. It was a pretty dreary day and although it only drizzled a bit we didn't really see the sun all day. It made it tough to really be motivated but we still managed to get through the day pretty easily. We felt like we were riding on an interstate for part of the day which was pretty frightening but that didn't last for too long and at least there was a big shoulder. Also we get more and more frightened of snakes every day because somehow the snake roadkill just keeps getting bigger. We also encountered our first live snake but it was just a little guy and not too scary.

Day 15
Today we rode from Jacksboro to Haskell, TX which was just over 100 miles. It felt like the easiest hundred miles we've ridden yet and seemed to fly by. It was nice that we were in the middle of nowhere and cars were very scarce so we could ride side by side and talk almost the entire day. Also we are finally getting in to what Chris and I thought Texas would really be like: hot, windy, flat, kind of deserty and with lots of cacti. We also saw a crazy looking river that I'll put up a picture of when we finally do post pictures. It was so red that it almost didn't look like water.

Sorry that was so long and I'll try to blog more frequently but we can only do it when we have a computer available. Anyways thanks for reading and we now have to go catch the end of the Red Wings game.

Don & Chris