Day 238 March 24, 2017 Hempstead, TX to Brenham

Texas hill country :)

While planning the trips to Austin, we were confronted with a couple choices. The spacing of hotels forced us to ride either 57 miles into Giddings or 25 miles into Brenham. Normally, 57 is the no-brainer choice but we're entering Texas hill country after more than a month in flat lands and the forecast was for a strong line of thunderstorms. We chose Brenham. Rechecking the forecast today there was a change for the worse:

FRIDAY

77°H

Not as warm with a strong thunderstorm; storms may bring downpours, large hail and damaging winds.




I don't mind getting rained on, but I draw the line at thunderstorms. I don't do lightning. Really. Not a fan. I've been in lightning storms before, it was not fun. At all. Add to that, hail and damaging winds? Un uh, no way. It wouldn't be prudent at this juncture.

Wanting to beat the storm we left bright and early at 8AM. (yes, I know that is not actually early for a work day, but were retired, so it is now)
We sailed along enjoying a tailwind and newly bloomed wildflowers making the scenery lovely.

Even the cows were happy. The group in the photo were bunched together eating something that made their tails happily swish.

I thought the shoreline of this river, the Brazos, was cool looking 

Washington, County claims to be the birthplace of Texas because on March 1, 1836, delegates met there to formally announce that Texas was separating from Mexico to become the New Republic of Texas. Attempts to annex it to the US began in 1834 and it finally joined in 1844.
Because Texas was a sovereign nation when it joined the USA, it is the only state that can fly its flag at the same height as the American flag, or so I was told. I seem to remember something along those lines about Hawaii, but I thought it best to leave it be. Texans really do take their state seriously.

I dubbed this the birthplace of roadside attractions. Two story high giraffe anyone?

This morning the local news aired story that claimed, using census data Houston's population rose by 159,000 people. Texas added 430,000  making their population rise to just shy of 28 million people! 1,178 people move to Texas every day. Which explains why Houston is a spaghetti bowl of highways and there is construction everywhere.

Tomorrow we head to Giddings to complete the 57 miles we began today.