We woke up this morning and had some great breakfast that Dan cooked for us. I mean, this group of guys is just so fun to travel with. All of them are just super nice and everyone has a sense of humor! Thank God! My dad and uncle are doing their best to make this a once a year ordeal. I would love to try to make it every year with the tradition, but I may only be able to do every other year. However, if Amber would get her Polaris Slingshot! Then, it'll be awesome. I really, really believe that she would have LOVED this trip.
We suited up and left about 9:13 am this day. We stopped at the Big Bend River Tours to sign up for a tour for the next day. They had a half day and full day tour. We chose the full day, why not? After that, we fueled up and headed back to Big Bend to try some other roads and go further into the park. This time, the guy/guard was at the entrance. Luckily, just about everyone had their senior pass for all National Parks so they could get in free. Well, everyone except Dan. However, he did have one of his daughters scan and email him a copy so he can show the guard. Yea, nope! That's not good enough. This guy made Dan pay for entrance any ways. The full $25. I can understand that, but what happened next was just ridiculous. So, Rick, who paid his $25 before Dan (Rick is not a senior yet), gave the guard a $100 and the guard gave Rick $75 back. Then, Dan goes ahead, even though he was aggravated, gave the guard $30. The guard took the cash, and then looked Dan square in his eyes and said, "I don't have any change." I really have no idea how the hell Dan kept his cool. But he did. That sure doesn't stop all of these other guys here giving him shit about it for the rest of the trip though. LOL.
We rode all the way through to Santa Elena Canyon Trail. But the ride was wet. It rained a good bit. Not the whole time, but a good bit. If it wasn't 'pouring', it was drizzling. So, still wet. Due to the wet roads, we of course took our time to make sure we were super safe. On the way to Santa Elena Canyon Trail, we did stop at Castolon Visitor Center for water and some snacks.
The Santa Elena Canyon Trail was nice and short, though it sure was muddy. It ended at the Rio Grande River. The water looked like chocolate milk. But, I guess that's normal with all of the rain that we've been seeing. Little did we know that we would actually pass this exact area tomorrow during our River Tour. Â
Overall, today, we rode just 74 miles in 3 hours and 42 minutes per Google Timeline. This was mainly because of the water on the road. We had to be careful as the roads were consistently wet. And then, of course, who knew that we would have been trapped in the park for close to an hour. On our way back, we ran into a bit of a problem. A section of the road that was nice and dry when we crossed the first time was now completely covered in a little flowing river. This really reminded me of our roads in Denham Springs and Central area during the Flood of 2016 in Baton Rouge on August. It was an awe to watch. But we did have a little bit of down time to sit and chat.
Once the water calmed down a bit and lowered, we were able to each "walk" our bikes through one at a time. Â
