A swim bike run of sorts in west Texas

Hope you all had a good relaxing labor day! My idea of 3 days off is go go go so I drove out west and did some sweet swimming biking and running, crazy uncle Jamie style. For the bike I did a section of the Butterfield stage route in Guadalupe Mountain National Park. You have to ask permission from the parks service and they give you a set of keys to unlock the gate. The recent rains had washed a lot of the road away, so much so that even the ranger jeeps would turn around in spots where the flooding had totally trashed it, so I was all alone out there. It was around an 8 or 9 mile ride to a spot called Williams Ranch, an old house in the middle of nowhere with nothing man made in sight in any direction. On one of the only spots of the road when I could actually go fast, I heard the tell tale "shikashikashikashikashh" and sure enough a rattle snake was in striking pose in the middle of the road, but I was too fast for that little guy. The run portion was going to the top of Guadalupe peak, the highest spot in Texas. With a sense of urgency that I still don't understand about myself, I motored up that mountain, red lining my engine the whole time. The only times I stopped were for a second to talk to other hikers and I could feel my heart beat pulsing through the rest of my body like it was trying to escape. They say that it takes 4 hours to summit, I got there in an hour and 45 minutes, so it was a pretty good sense of relief at the top where the view was out of this world! Swimming was at Balmorhea state park, build by the CCC back in the 30s. Crystal clear spring water in the middle of nowhere. It was a hell of a place to do some laps
Hope you all did something awesome for your labor day weekend

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