Life's Adventures

 

How far can you go in just three days?


Answer:
From Katy to Big Bend and Back.




Day 1 - Almost to Big Bend

3/10/2006
Started off in the fog... not unusual for me since I'm a slow starter in the morning. BTW this is not me, I'm much better looking. This is my back door. He kept the tailgaters off my rear.

We hoped to spend the night in the Basin in Big Bend, but we didn't quite make it. We were one hour shy, but then again we had a great time getting to the front door. We were happier than a couple of hogs in the mud, or in this case Harleys on the road.

We stopped in Columbus to gas up and while there tried to figure out how to take a picture with the two of us in the shot. We were not having much luck. Uncle Fester (wise but not so good looking) was really struggling with the logistics.


Lucky for us a school principal and her teacher daughter, who were escorting a bus load of kids on a field trip, came to our rescue. They too are bikers and recognized that gleeful look in our eyes; that look that comes from escaping the tedium of the office by straddling a motorcyle and letting the wind blow in your face. After telling us about her motorcycle and her daughter's and husband's motorcycles, the mother offered to show us how a group shot is accomplished... I guess that's why she's a principal. She snapped the photo and then gave chase to the bus load of kids that had already departed the truck stop.

We mounted our steeds and headed west at a good clip trying to get to Del Rio by mid day. Other than the obligatory gas and bio breaks we didn't stop. Well, we did take a short pause at a bakery but we counted it as one of our bio breaks.

Just before reaching Del Rio proper I pulled off to the shoulder, with Uncle Fester falling in behind wondering what was wrong. We weren't at a gas station or feeding spot??? I pointed to the road sign and explained that I needed a photo of me in front of the "Laughlin AFB Exit" sign. My brother and my niece both graduated flight school from there and I figured it would be cool to send them a picture of me visiting their old haunt... The brother is retired, but his daughter is flying in Iraq right now.

We stopped in Del Rio long enough to grab a bite at the local Luby's (no we didn't have to duck under the table to hide from a crazy gunman as they have taken to hitting Denny's these days). Topped our tanks at the last gas station heading out of town an proceed to what we thought would be our next refueling stop at Dryden.

Along the way we made a scenic stop at the highest bridge in Texas; the bridge over the Pecos river. It was rather exciting crossing the bridge as the winds were blowing at about 40-50 miles an hour straight into our face.

We made it to Dryden and found out that the single gas station had stopped pumping petrol years ago, so we had to feather our throttles and try to make it to Sanderson. We had been fighting a strong headwind the entire trip out of Del Rio so we weren't getting the usual 40 miles per gallon. Needless to say, we were more than a little concerned about our fuel level and the distance to Sanderson. As it happens, about 8 miles out of Sanderson my engine went into stealth mode (stopped running). We had just come over the last rise before descending into the valley where Sanderson sits so I thought I might be able to coast into town, but my windshield acted like a sail in reverse and brought me to a stop on the side of the highway. When I turned around to see where Uncle Fester was I was surprised to see him on the side of the road about a half a mile behind me. I thought, who in the world would have guessed that we would both run out of gas at exactly the same time??? I started walking back to where he had stopped when I saw his headlight come on and he pulled back on the road to come up to where I was. Turns out he didn't run out of gas after all, he got stung on the side of his head by a kamikaze bee. He couldn't pull over fast enough... ripping his helmet off and making sure the culprit was dead or gone. While he was showing me his battle wound I remembered that my bike has a reserve position on the fuel valve that gives me about half a gallon of fuel. I flipped the valve, started the engine and we went around the last curve into Sanderson. We didn't bother trying to find an Exxon station (Fester works for Exxon) but pulled into the first station we saw...

By now it was late afternoon and we had come to the conclusion that we were not going to make it to the Basin in Big Bend park before dark. You don't want to be riding on the roads in those parts after dark unless you are feeling lucky. The night creatures are very active and many of them like playing in the middle of the road. We decided to press on to the next town, which is Marathon. It is located at the entrance to the park and would provide us with a good launching point the next morning. When we pulled into town we got a little concerned because the street in front of the single hotel was lined with the cars and motorcycles of their guests. I thought we might have to sleep under the stars. Fortunately, they had a room available for the two of us. We ate an early southern dinner and hit the hay early. 450 miles of fighting a head wind had taken the wind out of our sails.

Uncle Fester and General Custer slept here.
The hotel's house pet - one of those "night creatures" I was talking about...








Day 2 - Big Bend and Beyond

Day two dawned cool (about 45 F) and clear. It was colder than Uncle Fester liked it so he was a little slow getting out of the rack and into gear. I think he was stalling to allow the sun time to warm up the seat of his Mutt Slayer (the name he gave his Ultra Classic - yes there is a story here but for another time). We had a leisurely breakfast at a small family owned diner where we watched the locals come and go. If we didn't have about 450 miles to go this day we probably would have sat there all morning drinking our coffee and watching the world pass by. It was great to not be in a rush to get to a meeting... Finally, I convinced Fester that he wouldn't turn into a popsicle so he downed his last swallow of coffee and we headed for our machines. On our way to the bikes we stopped to speak with a gentleman who had spent the week in Marathon riding the back roads. He and his Labrador were heading out from Texas to Arizona to see some more sites. Must be nice to not have to work for a living...

We went South out of Marathon towards Big Bend State Park. It is almost 40 miles from the town of Marathon to the entrance of the park and another 45 miles to the Basin. You can't help but get caught up in the grandeur and beauty of the desert and mountains.









Remember that I said we didn't want to ride through the park at night...

The changes in elevation are so gradual when your riding across the vast expanses of Texas that you don't realize how high some of the plains are. This is an elevation chart from my GPS showing that we went as high as 5800 feet on our trip. Katy is to the left at just above zero.


We spent a little while stretching our legs in the Basin area before heading out towards Alpine. Our plan was to go through the town of Alpine (home of Sul Ross State University) to I-10 and then East on I-10 as far as we could before dark. By the end of the second day we had made it as far as Sonora.
This night we rousted in an abode that was priced more in line with a poor biker... The Best Western. The young lady working the desk that evening was feeling gracious and gave us a Military discount since Uncle Fester had once been a Marine. According to Fester, once a Marine, always a Marine.


Day Three - There's no place like home... There's no place like home.

I don't know about Fester, but if I could have clicked my heels together and been home I might have given it a try... we had ridden hard the past two days and had a hard ride ahead of us. We arose not so early and ate our free breakfast at the hotel. Hey, we never pass up a free meal. The clouds had moved in during the night and we were keeping an eye on them. We sure weren't looking forward to riding back home in the rain. This part of the trip was not near as interesting as the previous two days as most of the trip consisted of watching the lunatics on I-10, and they were out there. At one point we passed a SUV in the ditch, surrounded by spectators and helpers. It appeared to have rolled several time before coming to a stop and the contents of the vehicle were strewn along the side of the road...

One thing that fascinated me on the third day of our trek was the hundreds and hundreds of wind generators we passed perched on the tops of the mesas. There were lines and lines of them all in nice neat rows. I didn't realize that Texas had so many wind turbines in service. I guess they were sifting out the stupid buzzards from the smart buzzards.

Once we got close to San Antonio we took to the back roads. Neither of us wanted to do battle with the rigs and weekend campers on the highway between San Antonio and Houston. Uncle Fester took the lead and did a great job of navigating through the lesser traveled paths, at least until he made a wrong turn on the other side of Seguin. I think he may have done this on purpose just to give me a chance to prove the worth of my GPS. I told him that this magic box could lead us home and he believed me (or humored me). Anyway, we let the GPS guide us to Katy along some roads that neither one of us had traversed. After a few stops to "calibrate" our position we finally arrived back at my house at 5:03PM, bringing to an end what both of us considered to be a perfect trip. In true biker fashion our parting words were, "where do we go next, and when"?