day 18: Keller to Windhorst, TX

101.6 miles – 1,231.9 total miles – 4,211 ft climb

Happy Birthday to our favorite son-in-law, Jeremy! We love you!!!

Many are the plans in a person’s heart, but it is the LORD’s purpose that prevails. 

Proverbs 19:21

I know people that are following our schedule are thinking, “Where the heck is Windhorst? That’s not on the schedule.” Well, no it actually is not on my well planned, well laid out schedule. When we got to Jacksboro, where we were supposed to spend the night, it was only around 1:00 and Bruce was feeling good. The weather was beautiful today and he had a light wind at his back. We looked at the map and saw the town of Antelope 20 miles down the road. Bruce thought he had 20 miles in him still and I thought Antelope sounded like a cute name for a place to stay, so we decided to carry on. When I got to Antelope, there was nothing there. I continued on down the highway and still didn’t see anything 10 miles down the road. I called Bruce to see if he wanted me to turn around and try to find some place to stay. He wanted to keep going. And so here we are in the church parking lot of St Mary’s Catholic church in Windhorst, TX. 34 miles past Jacksboro! This means we only have 25 miles to go tomorrow to get to Wichita Falls.

Bruce’s allergies were really bothering him today. According to him, his nose was “running like a sieve.” TMI? What do you do if your nose is running like that and you’re out biking? Well, as Bruce was cruising along, he happened to come upon the local sheriff, in his car ready to protect and serve. Bruce rolled up to him and said, “Excuse me. My allergies are really bad today. Do you happen to have an allergy pill on you?” I bet that had never been part of his job description before. But in the interest of protecting and serving, and since he happened to be near his house, he had his wife bring a Claritin out for Bruce. Bruce took it and continued on his merry way.

A little further down the road he came upon another biker, Jeff, who was on his way to Alaska. Jeff, unfortunately did not have a handy RV to follow/lead him on his journey. He was loaded down with every possible thing he might need. Except for padded biking shorts. Or biking shoes with clip-on pedals. Or a jersey. But this was not Jeff’s first rodeo. He had ridden across the northern part of the country and several other long bike trips.

When we got to Jacksboro Bruce had a hankering for icecream. We almost stopped at a place called the Dairy Inn, but all they served for lunch was BBQ and we had our fill of that for now. We asked a guy at the gas station and he said that the drugstore a few blocks down, AKA City Drugstore, made great shakes and served burgers. When we got there we found out that they had already closed their grill so we couldn’t get burgers. We decided to just get shakes and eat lunch in the RV. I got a really delicious Cherry Vanilla shake and Bruce got a Texas Praline shake. He was wishing he had stuck to his old favorite, a chocolate malt. This drugstore soda fountain has been in business since 1911.

We kept seeing these really tall, sturdy fences along the road. It always makes me wonder if there is something top secret in there and they are trying to keep people out or if there is some kind of wild animal in there that they are trying to keep in. After I took this pic and was putting it on the blog, I got my answer. Cows. How disappointing!