No Chain: Abilene, Texas

Continuing the small town America theme we rolled into Abilene earlier today after a short 43 mile sprint over from Sweetwater. After the last few days on the road we have had it was a nice break for the legs. However it wasn’t all smooth sailing, we did have our first serious injury of the ride this morning and it was a pretty serious wreck for everyone involved. Unlike the first 3 states we rode through in Texas it’s illegal to ride along the interstate which has led the support team to put us on some pretty interesting roads these first few days. So this morning as we were going under a bridge on a super bumpy patch one of the riders lost control and flew over his handle bars landing on his head and shoulder. Fortunately his helmet did its job and broke into 4 pieces but his shoulder wasn’t as lucky which resulted in a trip to the emergency department in Abilene. We all took it pretty easy the rest of the morning and finished together which was still by noon with the short distance. Abilene has a quaint little historic downtown area which is really great to see after the ghosts of downtowns we’ve been through recently. It seems all too often these small towns in the southwest are dominated by a Wal-mart, McDonalds and Dairy Queen along the interstate while the core of the downtown area goes to waste (probably sounds way too familiar to), I dislike the suburbs of big cities for the same reason where strip malls, chain restaurants and cookie cutter homes rule. A small group of us spent the afternoon at the Cypress Street Station, a beautiful historic building that has been converted into a restaurant and brew pub. The conversation of our trip came up with the wait staff (which happens a lot) and soon the owner of the restaurant (who just happened to be an Ohio State Graduate and letter winner) was sitting with us, asking questions, offering a place to stay and drinks. We met his entire family and promised we’d come back later that evening to watch some basketball games and talk some more. The church community center we stayed at featured a gym, arcade games, bowling alley and skating rink, way too much fun and entertainment for a group 25 "kids". We all really enjoyed our stay in Abilene, I’d stay awhile but I can’t wait to get to Fort Worth on Friday to see my family! No Chain!