Today I did something out of the ordinary, I drove to a place to ride my bike but it wasn’t an organized ride. Last night I loaded the Lynskey R300 bike into the Jeep Wrangler JKU Rubicon along with all of the stuff needed for a bike ride (seemed like a lot). The destination: Galveston, TX to ride the seawall plus some road on the west of the island after the seawall ends. I left home this morning around 8:45 AM. The drive was going great until traffic ground to a halt while Houston Police cleared what appeared to be a stalled truck. Once I cleared that area rolling down I-45 in light traffic a vehicle passed me on the left and a rock or something came up hitting the windshield of the Jeep. The unscared windshield now has a spiderweb about 1″ wide and 2″ long and of course it is where I look as I drive. The whole windshield is there to hit and why do the rocks always seem to land there. I think it is too big to repair so I will probably replace the windshield.

Arriving at the ferry parking lot I got out and walked to the restroom area and found a group of cyclists. They said they rode the seawall to there and when I asked about the wind they said it was tough. Something to look forward to. I knew today’s bike ride wasn’t going to be fast with the seawall people walking, jogging and biking. Unloading the Lynskey and getting prepared I set off at 10:49 AM.

Weather conditions: clear blue sky and bright sun: start 83 (53% humidity, 64 dew point), fair, wind NE 14 mph. Finish 87 (43% humidity, 62 dew point), fair, wind NE 12 mph. The weather was the main reason I picked today to come to Galveston. I thought Friday would be better than Saturday with less people but the parking slots along the seawall were mostly full where the beach was.

Biking west was easy with the tailwind pushing me but the return trip into the 12-13 mph NE wind was tough. I originally thought I would bike to the west end of the island but at beach access point 12 I decided to turn around to reduce the miles into the headwind. My legs agreed. The ride back to the ferry parking lot took longer than the ride to access point 12. The people traffic on the seawall seemed heavier too. I rolled into the ferry parking lot at 1:36 PM. After putting the Lynskey in the Jeep, changing clothes and cleaning up some I drove to the seawall to find Landry’s for lunch. I thought they might not be busy since it was 2:30 when I got there but they said it would be 30 minutes to be seated. It almost took that long. I sat outside in the perfect weather with the breeze blowing and the grackles flying in occasionally while I ate the fried seafood platter. Not sure how I managed to eat it all.

From there I drove to Baytown to visit a lady I met on a bike ride in Livingston, TX who last week had a pancreas transplant. After a nice visit I drove back home to complete a long day.