37 Goes Into 48 Just Fine

We rode the roads in Bell County this morning, a glory tour through wildflowers and wind and cows and creeks, from Salado to Holland to Belton, right past the Stillhouse Hollow lakeside and then back. We stopped at the edge of the lake, then rode across the dam to make our way back to Salado. The 37 miles gave us a long ride which I was dedicated to doing slow, since it's my birthday. The winds made it easy to keep down the pace, pummeling us in the first hour of our 2-hour, 45-minute ride from the east, on the road between Salado and Holland at 16 MPH. The countryside was gorgeous, carpeted with yellow wildflowers on gentle hills, the highway hugged by waving flocks of primroses a-flutter in the insistent breezes.

Holland was cute, a tiny burg we entered on a main highway that became a street with oaks that arched over the road from either side. Later on there was the Summer's Mill creek crossing, built across a fine waterfall of a branch of the Lampasas River. A loose dog chased us away from the Mill's conference center, but he was all bark and didn't cross the yellow line.

Later on in the day Abby and I hosted a birthday party to celebrate No. 48 for me. I ran around the yard with a sparkler like I was 40 years younger, ate a slice of cake our friend Jane had baked from my memory of a boyhood dessert, and dropped into talk and laughter with friends out on our back patio deck and cabana. Too cold to swim today, but we gathered around the pool anyway, watching the grackles and doves take a dip in the little pond in the backyard.