March 14, 2008 Athens, TX

Jeni Lyn Anderman joined me on the ride today. It's nice to have company on the long stretches of highway between the "sights". Jeni is the Scene Shop Supervisor at University of Texas - Arlington, and this is her first long tour by bike. She even bought a new bike just for this ride. Now THAT's confidence and commitment. Judging by her performance today, she'll do just fine on the fianl 200 miles of this ride.

We left Greenville shortly after 9 AM and had to deal with quite a bit of traffic for the first 15 miles. Things calmed down a bit as we rode through a lake area outside of Quinlan. Lunch was taken in a quaint little railroad town called Wills Point. This part of Texas has LOTS of antique stores, quilt shops and craft places. It's worth driving through if you're into old stuff.

After lunch, we headed back down the road as the sun and the temperature climbed. The landscape here is slightly rolling with small (by Texas standards) ranches and hobby farms for the rich folks in Dallas.

And there are some interesting "alternative lifestyle" ranches as well. We passed one called the "Pondarosa" - a clothing optional facility according to the sign out front. Being called "Little Joe" at this Pondarosa would not be a good thing, although Hoss would probably be very popular.

A little further down the road we passed a ranch with three flags flying in front of the house - American, Texas and Confederate. The trivia question of the day is: What are the "Six Flags Over Texas" ( answer at the end of this journal entry ). The Texas flag and/or the Lone Star is everywhere you look - mailboxes, sides of houses, cars, billboards, clothing. Texas really is a state of mind!

We ended up in Athens after 75 miles on the road. It's another typical Texas county seat - a County courthouse surrounded by a town square with Victorian houses radiating out from the center of town. Norman Rockwell would love to paint this. A couple of beers and some pasta for dinner has me ready for tomorrow's ride. Another 70 plus miles across East Texas. Hope I can keep up with my younger companion. These 55 year old muscles are still sore...

(Answer to trivia: France, Spain, Mexico, Texas Republic, Confederate, United States)