Gotta get away.....Wrapup

Well, I made it back home in one piece. Never really worried about it, but there were a few moments of WTFO..... On the whole it was a very calming ride. Day one saw me up and out of Austin around 9:30. The rule for the day was 100 miles or more between gas stops, and ride till I was sick of it. I made it all the way to Norman, OK before I was ready to stop. Once I crossed the border into OK, the wind shifted and started blowing across the highway. The last 120 miles in a 30mph crosswind took the steam out. By the time I hit Ardmore, I was ready to stop so I figured Norman would be a good place to end up. I got in around 5:00 or so. I probably could have made it all the way to Edmond, but that would have put me in downtown OKC during rush hour, and I really didn't want that. I figured, hit the shower, hit dinner, then hit the bed.

Saturday morning it was up and on my way to Pop's Route 66. Turns out they were having the Route 66 Corvette show that day. I rolled in on a classic BMW surrounded by Corvettes. It was almost surreal. I parked in motorcycle parking.....being on RT66, Pop's has a large area set aside for motorcycle parking. I don't know if they plan it this way or not, but the Harleys fill in the parking from Right to left, and the Beemers fill in the parking left to right. The others park from the middle out. This was where I heard the conversation that showed me the difference between people who ride Harleys and people who ride BMWs. While I was at the BMW end of the line, people were comparing gear. One guy was talking about how he can't imagine riding in anything other than armored boots. When I got down to the Harley end of the line, I listened to two guys discussing exactly how little coverage the helmet could have and still be legal. It really shocked me to come to the realization that it seally came down to that the Harley riders laugh at you for wearing too much gear, and the BMW riders laugh at you for not wearing enough. I never guessed it would come down to something that simple.

After Pop's, I followed old 66 down to I-40 to stop by the OKC BMW dealership. I like to stop by dealerships whenever I am near to have a cup of coffee and hang out for a few. It lets me rest and chat with locals and find out where the road construction is. After leaving there, I went up to Yukon, and followed Old 66 down to just outside of Bridgeport, OK to turn ad go to Red Rock Canyon over by Hinton, OK. I promised Angela I would bring back a red rock for her. I forgot that the place is made of sandstone, so I started off with a fairly sizable rock, and after riding back to Denton, I found a much smaller rock and a lot of dust..... While I poked around the canyon I saw another person on a BMW R1200RT. We chatted for a few minutes, and I saw a patch on his jacket that made me chuckle "I ride too often, too far, and too fast to ride a Harley". That just made me chuckle a bit. The rest of the day was spent filtering down various back roads and secondary highways to get back into Denton, TX.

When I made it back to Denton, I checked the forecast. It seems that Austin had been put under a fairly significant thunderstorm warning, and I really didn't want to mess with riding in a thunderstorm all the way home after such a nice trip, so I decided to head back on Sunday morning. I still have Monday and Tuesday off from work, so I will likely do some riding then, weather permitting.

Once the decision to head back was made, the ride was fairly easy. I rode straight through from Denton to Waco, and stopped at the Starbucks to have coffee. Of course, there was the same group of guys that are there every weekend on their bikes, so we sat around and talked for a couple hours while I had coffee and let my hands stop vibrating. I ended up having to shuck most of my layers in Waco, and I still ended up being hot by the time I got back to Austin. When I left Denton this morning, it was around 40 degrees. When I rolled into Austin at 3:00, it was over 80. I love Texas weather....Hope for the best, plan for the worst, deal with what you get.

Oh well, I am home and alive. My brain is in buch better shape than when I left, and I can really tell the time I have been spending in the gym is paying off in mileage. 350+ per day and I am not as tore up as I really thought I would be. My brain is mushy, but my body is still good.

Here is the last day's route:


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gotta get away.....Day 2

Up and running about 8:00 this morning. Made my way up to Pop's. Got a hold of an awesome vanilla cream soda. Here is a shot of the bottle:



I stopped on the way to get a shot of the bike in front of the RT 66 mural in Edmond.



I went ahead and ran route 66 out to the turnoff to Hinton to go to Red Rock Canyon. It was still about what I remember, a big red hole in the ground.



The trip back south got me to Denton, the weather wasn't bad, but the wind was fairly ugly across the middle of Oklahoma.

I think all of the bugs that didn't want to die in the first freeze of the year decided to commit suicide on my visor.



oh well, I am beat...here is the route for today:


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gotta get away.....

Today was a very nice ride. This day was all about riding until I was done riding. I just jumped on I-35 and went north until I was ready to stop. I made it to norman, ok. It was only about 370 miles or so, but i managed to miss them, but only barely.it was enough.

Only a couple real interesting things today. Just after the split at hillsboro, the car in front of me spooked a flock of birds that were hanging out beside the road. When they flew, they decided to cross the highway. That was exhilarating. The other little bit of excitement was just north of ardmore, ok. The speed limit up there is 70mph. The crosswind was about 30mph. I got passed by a semi who was going around 80. That little adventure was enough to convince me that I would be going however fast I needed to go to not get passed by another semi.

The route for tomorrow looks like I will probably go up to pops and get breakfast, then head over to redrock canyon, then start heading back south.

Here is the route for today:


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Hill Country Escape Day 4

Today turned out to be a fairly light day due to incoming weather and general tiredness. Basically, today was a short ride over to Luckenback, TX. Spent an hour or so hanging out in town, had lunch there. Angela got to ride a bull (and yes, I got a picture)



After a bit of time in Luckenbach, we went down to Fredricksburg and visited the Japanese garden at the Nimitz museum, then had some coffee. After a little time hanging out at the cafe, we headed back for the hotel. We actually managed to get back right at 10 min before a hell beyond storm started up. It was bad enough that I could not see across the street.

We are going to try for the sisters again tomorrow, I guess.

Here is the route:


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Hill Country Escape Day 3

Today was a sleep late day. Not a whole lot of excitement. We ended up going for a bit of a ride through some familiar areas. The route we took ended up being one that we have ridden quite a number of times before, it was familiar enough that we could really let it hang out, but fast enough that we were not bored with it.

Watching the weather radar and watching out the window can be very disheartening. I can see on the radar that we are surrounded by thunderstorms, but the ground outside is dry. The wind is blowing like there is a storm in the area, but we are not seeing it at the hotel. I certainly want to make sure before I drag this crew up into the hills. There are too many places that a little rain could get fairly disastrous fast. If all goes well, we should be able to hit all 3 of the sisters tomorrow. It will be about 200 miles total, and there will likely be much whining. Worst case, it looks like Sunday is clearing up a bit, so that will likely be an option. Wish us luck on the weather.



Here is the route from today:


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TTFN,

Dave

Hill Country Escape Day 2

The day started off a bit slow. We had a nice leisurely breakfast at the hotel, and then took off into the hills. The first place we visited was the Mini Stonehenge. We got a few pics, but they have not been processed yet. I shot mostly film, and Kel shot a lot of Digital SLR. I will get those shots up as soon as we get around to going through them. We made some pretty good time through RR 1340. It was actually a very nice little twisty road. Highway 83 took us down to Leakey. I know that this is a touchy subject for some, but I think they might possibly have the most unfortunate high school mascot ever. This is, of course, the home of the Leakey Eagles...... something that nobody really wants flying overhead. Highway 83 is fairly long and straight, not a lot of excitement. We spent the rest of the run back to the hotel on nice twisty farm roads. There were a good number of them that were a bit more than we bargained for. There was a lot of twisting and turning, and some corners that were not really always a guaranteed win.

I think the high point of the trip came at this little town called Medina. We rolled in to have a little water and take a rest before the nastiness of TX 16 to Kerrville. As we are sitting in the parking lot having some water, a couple little teenage girls go scampering by chasing something. As Angela goes over to see what is going on, she notices that they are chasing a Luna moth.

Angela manages to rescue this poor little moth from the side of the street and get it over into the bushes so it is not out in the middle of the parking lot. After it made it to the bushes, I managed to get some fairly decent pictures of it. I will get those pictures up as soon as I get them processed.

I am looking at the weather to see what we have to look forward to over the next couple days, and it looks like we have a very good chance of rain every day left in the trip. This displeases me greatly. We have gone through one of the hottest and driest summers on record, and the weekend of our road trip is when the drought decides to break and give us rain. I wish it could have waited just three more days. That would have made things much better for all involved. We had a bit of other excitement, but I will leave the details of that for the wrap-up post.

Oh well, time to figure out where we are going tomorrow.

Here is the route from today:


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TTFN

Dave

The big yearly trip...

Well, due to the work mess I did not get to take the big trip this year. Instead, we got a room at the inn of the hills and invited a bunch of our riding friends to get rooms and join us. Then we can head out each day to run around the hill country and explore. The inn's website is http://www.innofthehills.com/. So far, Vern and Glenn, Kel, and Angela have shown up. We may have more coming in over the next few days.

I am on the R90, Angela is on the Ural.

Here is the route for the day:


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