Day 39 - Bastrop, TX to La Grange, TX

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​Beautiful ride today through in between Bastrop State Park and Buescher State Park and south to the outskirts of the historic town of La Grange Texas. I say historic because La Grange  was home to “the best little whorehouse in Texas”, which was known as the the chicken ranch because the property also included a chicken ranch and during the Great Depression some of the customers paid for services with live chickens. 

In 1972 The state of Texas finally decided that enough was enough and over the protest of thousands of locals decided to close the chicken ranch. It has been closed for 50 years and no remnants of it remain. But I stopped at a bar outside of La Grange and some of the patrons at that bar today claimed also to have been patrons of the chicken ranch. They said that some of the employees of the chicken ranch still live in La Grange. And, of course, thanks to ZZ Top La Grange has and will be forever known as the home of the chicken ranch.


I ran into another bicyclist riding westward on the Southern Tier. He seemed to be enjoying the ride, but had decided to take an Amtrak train from Austin to El Paso thereby skipping west Texas altogether.


There is a huge antique show taking place this weekend in this region and there are no campsites or motels available in La Geange. Fortunately, Tracy the bartender was kind enough to offer to let me camp in her yard tonight, anoffer which I gratefully accepted!





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