We're back from our Austin Adventure! This past weekend was the Get Your Guts in Gear bike ride. Ted, Phil, Brian, Casey and Babs rode 210 miles over 3 days from La Grange to Austin, TX. I went down to crew the ride, along with Elizabeth and Chuck. The route was beautiful and wound through hills and ranch land where we saw all kinds of fun Texas wildlife and foliage including longhorns, armadillos, deer, cactus and agave plants.
We started our adventure on Tuesday when we drove to LaCrosse to drop off Madeleine with my parents for the week. Six of us (pictured below from left to right: Casey Caldwell, Elizabeth Larsen, Brian Decker, Ted, me, and Phil Larsen) flew out of the Rochester airport on Wednesday morning and arrived in Austin early afternoon. We had dinner at a fun local place shortly before Chuck and Babs Larsen (Phil's folks) arrived.
We spent the night in Austin, then Ted and I woke up early and walked down to the capitol before getting packed up and heading to La Grange to meet the rest of the riders and crew.
On Friday morning we woke up very early to get to the opening ceremony in the La Grange town square. Here we are with Chuck and Babs just before the riders hopped on their bikes to begin mile one of two hundred and ten!
I crewed for the ride. That entailed going ahead of the bikers to designated rest stops and setting up food, Gatorade and fun for the riders. The rest stops were every 15 miles or so, and we were all encouraged to have a theme. Our theme was "Margarita-ville" and we had Jimmy Buffet inspired music in the background, and lots of fun decorations. My partner was Jerry Anderson, whose son Zach rode. Other crewing duties included sweepers, who rode the course to pick up distressed riders, a bike repair guy who changed flat tires and kept the bikes in good running order, and camp crew who set up and tore down camp every day.
Here's a shot of Casey, Phil, Brian and Ted leaving our rest stop on day one.
Our first night on the ride, we camped in a beautiful camp ground in a state park. The second night we spent at a church camp with amazing scenery! It was definitely not "roughing it" on night two - we all had cabins with showers and bathrooms and bunk beds :)
This is the whole group - all crew and riders - at the church camp.
Here are Phil and Elizabeth in front of an Agave plant.
On the last day of riding, part of the route went over a dam - it was beautiful!
Here's Ted biking
Elizabeth also did a rest stop - her partner was Jaime, and their theme was Halloween.
Ted finished the whole ride in great form! Here he is hoisting his bike in celebration. Those bikes were so light!
All of the riders - happy to be done :)
Finally, here's the whole Rochester group at closing ceremonies. We celebrated the end of the ride with a Texas BBQ at the Salt Lick Ranch - and it was really, really good! After the ride, we headed back to a hotel near the airport, showered and walked to the Waffle House for a light dinner and then CRASHED in bed. We got up early and flew home, then I left from the airport to pick up Madeleine and now we're all happy to be home. It was a great adventure.
