Freestones and Freewheeling

Today I rode Creek Road along Onion Creek with Abby, John and Ellen, a circle cruise beside sheep ranches, longhorn cattle pastures and the persistent mid-summer flow of a Hill Country creek. The creek fluttered across the dams with a trickling personality, calmer than on the ride this spring when we last traveled beside it. We started at 8, to avoid the hottest part of the day, following County Road 190, known as Creek Road to the locals, between the Henley VFD and Dripping Springs.



The route's elevation is pretty tame, at least compared to the hard work of riding up FM 165 from Blanco to Henley. But all the freewheeling, just coasting downhill or on level ground, gave me time to look for the wildlife to the side of the road and penned up behind rancher's fences. Near the end of the ride I looked up the road to see an eight-foot snake — rattler, cottonmouth, something huge — stretched across the pavement, warming itself. The snake was immobile, with about a two-foot stretch of road open in front of the head of the beast. You call out lots of warnings while you ride, but not too often is the call "big snake in the road." You have to get well out into the country to use that one.

After the ride we had brunch at the Sunset Cafe in Blanco, where they serve the Wagon Wheel Pancake. Eat three of them and they are free. You save the $5.75 that way, but probably spend at least as much in gym membership working off the calories. Vast pancakes that fill a dinner place and stand a half-inch thick. Abby and I split just one, smothered with tiny blueberries.

Beyond the pancakes lay the freestone peaches, now in season and at roadside stands along US 290 in Stonewall and Fredericksburg. Near the end of June I try to make a point of shopping for Texas peaches out there, because the freestones — which split open clean and leave the stone free — are among the last kinds of peaches to come in. The four of us split a $17 box of "Ripes," some with a bruised spot, all picked a few days earlier. Abby and I took home our 12 pounds of peaches for $8.50. We've been dividing them up this afternoon between fridge holding box and brown paper sack for ripening.