Discussion: Hill country

This excursion is reminding me of a trip Rhonda, Jess and I took back in '91, back when Rhonda was a serious long distance driver. Bikes on a rack on the roof, down to TX to visit the in-laws, go to the A-meet at Bastrop, not entirely sure what else. 4 rides that I remember:
1. On the way down, driving along the Natchez Trace Parkway. We stopped for a rest break and I took off on my bike, meeting up with Rhonda and the car about 20 miles along. Very fine riding.
2. From Rhonda's mom's house down to Hitchcock, where she had lived as a kid to visit her aunt and assorted family friends. Not recommended. Too much traffic, not very interesting scenery.
3. Heading W out of Galveston, flying along and feeling really strong, until it was time to head back and we figured out what a tail wind we had been enjoying. Eventually just had to leave Rhonda with the bikes and hitchhike back to get the car, as I needed to get back and we weren't making any noticeable progress.
4. From San Marcos and her step-sister Tamara's place. Hill country, and as you say, aptly named. I remember it being generally enjoyable but tiring.

What was especially surprising to me was the effort Austin has taken to make things bike friendly. Bike lanes all over the place, sometimes narrow (but very sufficient), sometimes quite wide, all well marked. And they have signed and numbered a lot of different routes.

The only problem was I couldn't find a map showing where these numbered routes went. Found this, but it didn't show the numbered routes.

If I had been around longer, I would probably just have started following number routes, seeing where they went. Did that a couple of times for short sections, and rather good fun. Don't know where you're going to go, just that it will be bike friendly.

When we got there, I was quite terrified of the prospect of three days of riding in city traffic. Was always careful and alert, but never anything remotely approaching a close call. Very satisfying, though of course it only takes one bad moment to ruin a day/trip/life...

Austin is Mikell's kind of town.

That may well be, a search of his log shows 7 mentions of Austin over the past decade and 4 of them say it is his kind of town.

On the other hand, it seems he has actually only been to Austin once in the last decade, and that visit in 2008 lasted about an hour, which he spent trying to find the SRV statue. Eventually successful, but apparently that was a traumatic experience, because he hightailed it out of town and hasn't been back since.

How come? Maybe it's not really his kind of town?

Directions to find the statue.

If Vilnius is Mikell's kind of town, he could go find the Frank Zappa statue, if that would be interesting to him.

Austin is definitely my kind of town.

So what happened back in 2008 that caused you to skedaddle out of town as fast as possible and never go back? Was there a woman involved?

Geez, so long ago...almost ten years.... Hmmm, maybe that was the time reliable reports of a sighting of a Rufous-capped Warbler came in from Big Bend, and off I went!