Cycle The Parks, Maps

Porpoise

In November 2000, I was invited to join a fellow tourist on a hill country excursion. We were to do a 4 day/3 night ride Kerrville – Bandera – Garner SP – Lost Maples SP – Kerrville. Our timing was perfect, a week earlier and much of the route would have been under water. As it was, the covers on the roadside picnic tables still had debris on them from the swollen creeks. Barbed wire fences had debris on the top wire, and as the fence was above us, the road would have been under water by more then 5 feet.

This has nothing to do with porpoises.

By the time we reached Garner SP, it was misting, cool, and threatening real rain (it did rain). At the park HQ, a cabin was offered, and accepted. This meant another 100 feet of climbing to get to the old section that had the remaining DRY cabin. All of this leads us to having to return a key at check out the next morning. As I was checking out, part of the conversation went like this

Park “Where you heading next ?”

me: “Lost Maples State Park”

Park “The hard way or the easy way ?” as his hand rose, then dropped, twice. This was visible to my companion outside.

me, not knowing which : “Through Leakey”

Park: “oh”

Upon exiting the building, the next conversation went like this

Nancy: “He wasn't talking about porpoises, was he?”

Me: “nope”

Nancy: “ When a driver comments about the road being hilly, they are bad”

They were.

The porpoises indeed jump twice between Leakey and Vanderpool on RR337. My foggy memory of them was climbing into the clouds, dropping down into the rain, then climbing back into the clouds, followed by a final drop into Vanderpool.

Now that I have seen this section in the sun, it is very scary – hairpins, blind corners, and deathly drop offs. Amazing views made better when you earn them. Try this with a touring load.