Spring 2012 Big Ride - Day 4

Sunday
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HOME!  1225 Miles at an average speed of 57 MPH.

Midland was a brisk 55F at 7 AM. Temps remained below 70F until I was less than 1 hour from Austin.
The wildflowers between Brady and Llano were spectacular. Entire fields of yellow then pink then white then blue then golden...and on it went. The hills and curves of Hwy 29 between Llano and Burnet mixed rock outcroppings with the wildflowers was particularly pretty.

What a great trip...but now it's time to clean the bugs off...there are about a billion.

Spring 2012 Big Ride - Day 3

Saturday
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Today started cool and beautiful in The Basin in Big Bend. Sunrise on the peaks around us was a delight. The swelling in Steve's knee was much better and the colors were even more interesting than they had been the night before. The good news was improved flexibility. He was ready to ride. Breakfast was fab. And the hawks were great entertainment. The coffee was even pretty good. That's too dang uncommon.

The climb out of the Basin is very steep and the turns are very sharp...a great morning eye opener. And the road north is the picture of austere beauty. The ride north to Midland is all but rifle straight and the austerity to beauty ratio leans hard to austerity as Midland grows closer.

In Midland Steve pressed on to Lubbock...and I took in the Commemorative Air Force Museum. It is well done. The collection is smaller than I expected but they have a Storch...the German WWII STOL wonder (Sub 300 foot take off or landing in still air...very cool.) The Zenair CH701 Sky Jeep is the modern successor to this incredible airplane.
 

The Nose Art Gallery is really the highlight of the place. No photos allowed but I saw this one there... The other exhibits of the museum were well done. I saw a 28 cylinder radial engine for the first time. Holy smokes, what a beast.

Since I had arrived late in the day it was a pretty quick dash through the rest of the exhibits...they were arranged chronologically mostly...and mainly told the story of the WWII air war, so naturally the end of the line was a replica of Big Boy (one of the two A-Bombs dropped on Japan)...and an eight foot tall photo of Nagasaki...post bombing. I have seen the photo before...in books...but that size, on a wall...the vehicles in the streets still looked like ants but the entire 8 x 10 foot frame was unspeakable devastation. I could not help but feel desperately sad. So much effort. So much money. So much genius. So many lives given to the cause of building machines to kill people. I love the technology...the ingenuity...the perseverance...but the cause makes me so sad. We have got to come up with something better to motivate us.

Outside the museum hanger there is a memorial chapel. It is very beautiful. A soaring roof line. No walls. All stone floors, altar and benches. A little man-made creek runs down the center isle. It was the perfect end to the tour...almost. The motif was decidedly Christian. I wish you could expect the Commemorative Air Force leaders to want to recognize the spiritual bent of all those Americans who the museum claims to represent, including the Jews, the Buddhists, the Muslims and the rest. Maybe someday that will be so...but not today...not in Midland Texas.

Spring 2012 Big Ride - Day 2

Friday

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The morning was cool, crisp and bright. PERFECT!



We made our way up 335...one of the Twisted Sisters. Nobody else was on the road.



Or off the road either, for that matter.



Speaking of off the road, a few miles north of here, Steve made a brief off-road detour and performed an acrobatic demonstration. The best we have been able to reconstruct is that when he hit the sudden drop-off at the edge of the pavement he and the bike went over...but the left handle bar dug into the dirt better than the rest of the bike. It seemed to mostly arrest the forward motion of the bike but caused it to spin counter-clockwise on its side and whack Steve on his right knee as it went around. Scrapes were immediately obvious. We didn't really figure out the right knee issue for a few hours...once it had gained a few dress sizes.

I actually missed the demonstration itself, but saw a dust cloud where I had expected to see a headlight in my rear view mirror, and found Steve flat on his back making dust angels by the time I got back to him. He was bruised and winded with a couple of scrapes but in remarkably good shape. The bike was a little bruised too, but suffered no serious damage and fired right up once we got her greasy side down again. Being the tough guy he is, Steve reported himself ready to press on, so we did.



Rocksprings provided a chance to top up gas and clean up a little and then we were off to Bracketville and the set of John Wayne's Alamo movie. Ranch Road 674 is an A+ ride...right up there with the Sisters. Allas, the Alamo was closed. (William B. Travis should have though of that...just put out a "CLOSED" sign and send Santa Anna packing!) Oh well...next time.



After we hit the Subway in Brackettville, we headed west. Here's the view from East of the Pecos...actually, it is the Pecos River.



And next is the view from West of the Pecos...Judge Roy Bean's actual Saloon "The Jersey Lilly" and just up the hill, his home "The Opera House". Incredibly (in this age of slash an burn government) the site is open to the public and operated by the Texas Highway Department as a highway Visitor's Center, as it has been since the mid-1930's. Hooray for Texas!



From there we continued west until we rolled into Big Bend as sundown was beginning to creep towards us. PERFECT.

Spring 2012 Big Ride - Day 1

Thursday
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We had, as you might expect, a delightful day. The first half of the trip featured breathtaking views of the most prolific crop of bluebonnets and other wildflowers either of us had ever seen...and that includes the great crop we had a few years ago.

We rode relatively slowly, rarely as fast as 65 MPH and both got great mileage. We stopped for gas in Llano, for no particular reason except to shed some cold weather gear. Temps had climbed from 57F to 70F but had fallen back to 66F. Still it was plain that we would be too warm pretty soon. The wind was pretty stiff, from the south. Flags were mostly blown straight back from their masts most of the day.

9 AM Departure (more or less)

1431 Westbound outside Burnet (Wow)

Enchanted Rock by 11 am

We made Fredericksburg a bit after noon. The street were pretty packed so we parked a couple of blocks behind the Nimitz Museum. We needed the walk. We headed south, crossed Main and found "Sugar and Smoke" a combo bakery and BBQ place. It looked pretty classy...too nice to have good BBQ. Wow...I could not have been more wrong. The waitress recommended their rib special. KILLER. Who knew.

After lunch we made the hop to Kerrville where I let the GPS mis-direct me to Medina. I had intended to go via 16 but realized she had sent me the wrong way too late. No big deal. When we got there 30 minutes later, we rode 16 back towards Kerrville...and turned around and rode it back again. Perfect! 16 between Kerrville and Medina is a great road. It is so steep and sharp in some places the highway department has installed rumble strips and radar speed signs to warn folks to get it down to 15 MPH for the curves. FUN!

Our destination for the day was Camp Wood, the hub of the Twisted Sisters (335, 336 and 337). We jumped onto the first sister in Medina and headed west. Approaching Leakey is spectacular and the ride from Leakey to Camp Wood is wonderful too. Big canyons, tight curves (some marked for 10 MPH) and steep hills with great views make 337 a world class ride.

This is a view from a scenic overlook along the way.

Looking southeast on 337 (One of the Twisted Sisters) near Leakey.

A lady wearing her husband's new boots takes our picture...

I met a kamikaze bug heading for camp wood... He came in just over my windshield, just under my visor and caught me right on the nose...with a big splat. Steve suggested that I avoid saying it took a lot of guts for him to do that, so I will.

The Woodbine Inn in Camp Wood is basic but clean. We and a a couple of guys running a drilling truck seem to be the only guests but the WiFi works and the Mexican food place is just down the street. I notice they offer biscuits and gravy for breakfast, so I guess we will be going back in the morning!

I need to check into why Camp Wood has a larger compliment of stars than Austin. Seems like the Capitol of Texas should get a larger allocation.

Big Ride to Big Bend

It is Springtime in Texas and Big Bend is calling. Long time buddy Steve Henderson will join me for a four day feast of some of the best motorcycle roads in Texas. We will roll up just over 300 miles per day and see some of the wildest west left to see. The weather reports look perfect.

This will be my first non-solo long ride...and I believe it will be Steve's longest. This is the kind of Spring Break I have looked forward to for 40 years. I'm ready!