I woke up at 7:30 after wandering around 6th Street in Austin and going to bed at 3am.  I thought I’d spend some time sleeping in this morning and went to plug in my phone so it’d charge before I got up.  Unfortunately, turning off Airplane mode let the emails through and my monitoring said that my site was down again.  Spent the morning fixing that instead of sleeping.

I had planned on going to Salt Lick BBQ -http://www.saltlickbbq.com/ for lunch and since it was a little early, I thought I would go grab a coffee.   And what better than to have a donut to go with that coffee?   So since I was going to be in Round Rock anyway – Round Rock Donuts!  http://www.roundrockdonuts.com/

Plan was just 1 donut and coffee.  But after sweating outside in the line, I thought 2 would be better.  And just an extra one for later.  Didn’t quite work out that way – ate all 3 and finished my coffee.  Great breakfast – not healthy at all.   But I did manage to kill enough time for Salt Lick to open.

Thurman’s Choice plate – Ribs, Brisket and sausage.

Very different than Smitty’s Market.  This place bottles and sells their own BBQ sauce, and their meat is flavoured differently to match.  I really only had a taste of each before the donuts did their thing and filled me right up.   I just sat there staring at my plate.  Server kept asking if I was okay before I explained that the food was delicious and I was just stumped by my own poor decision making.  Packed it up, shoved it in the top case and tried to head east before the bad weather kicked in.

Having picked up a Misty Mate Classic (http://www.mistymate.com/misty-16-classic.html) recently, this was the day to try and get it set up to be useful on the bike.  Looks like it leaks a bit and putting it in the tankbag got everything wet in Austin so tried to find another location where I could put it to good use.   More of a distraction than anything else…

Eventually, I ran out of water in the mister and the hydration pack.  Combined with the coffee and iced teas, I needed to stop.   So pulling over at a McDonald’s, I paid my $1 to get a drink and used their facilities.   I guess I was in there longer than I thought, because by the time I came out, the skies had greyed over quite a bit.   Looking down the highway, it definitely looked like rain.

But since I was already on the road, I figured if I saw wet cars coming the other way with their wipers on, I’d stop to swap the GoPro into the waterproof case and put on some rain gear.  This was from the naive perspective of a Vancouverite.  Where there isn’t so much ‘rain’ as just wetness.  This was a proper thundershower.  The border between dry and soaking wet was maybe 30s.  I pulled over and swapped out the GoPro cases, but by the time that was done, I was already wet.

Having not much to lose at this point, I kept riding.  The storm front was intense – couldn’t see road lines and slowed down like crazy.  Didn’t take long before I was soaked to the bone – water swishing around in the boots.  But then clear skies!  Sun!

Shouldn’t take long before I dry off, right?   Wrong!   With the crazy humidity, I was just warm and less soggy.  Eventually the rain came back to the drizzle I’m used to…   Stopping for gas and to revisit directions, I put on the rain jacket and gloves to settle in for the rest of the commute.

30mins later, in Lake Conroe and watching the cops and ambulances speed by, I thought I should give up before getting run over.  I found a hotel in The Woodlands and made some online reservations.  Of course, by the time I made it to the hotel, the area was clear and dry.  I however, was not.

Oh… memories of Cali 2011.   Soaking wet gear propped up against the air conditioner.