Life's Adventures

Well the time finally came for our much anticipated annual Hill Country cycle ride. We left out on Thursday morning April 20th at about 7:30 AM (I wanted to sleep in but Uncle Fester was chomping at the bit to go) for a four day weekend. Terry and Joan rode on his Softail, Uncle Fester rode his Ultra Classic, and I rode my Road King. Donna, Sharon, Lauren, and Katherine gave chase in the Tahoe (a three wheeler with a spare tire). We headed west along the southern route of old Highway 90, which takes you through Eagle Lake, Gonzales and into Seguin.

We took a quick stretch and feeding break in Gonzales...




Uncle Fester getting his jacket let out after breakfast...



From Seguin, we headed north on 46 passing through New Braunsfels and stopping for lunch in Gruene. No, you don't pronounce Gruene like it looks, you pronounce it "green" - I was corrected several times and finally gave in...









I've never seen a group that studied the menu so intently...




In the town of Gruene there is a dance hall that they claim is the oldest still operating dance hall in Texas. I always wonder who validates these claims??? I didn't get a picture of the dance hall...
While we were eating lunch it started to drizzle. We had not encountered any rain up to this point even though the forecast said there was a 30 percent chance of scattered thunder storms. Well, the drizzle soon turned to rain so we hid out in the general store and antique shop hoping it would blow through. After two hours of killing time we decided that it wasn't going to clear so we downed our rain gear and headed out at a cautious pace. Little did we know the we were being watched over. During the two hour delay in Gruene, a terrible storm blew through Fredericksburg and the surrounding area; flooding the roads and dropping hail stones. When we pulled into Luckenbach, the normally slow moving clear stream that meanders through the town was a raging torrent of muddy water carrying with it tree branches and other debris. The street was strewn with leaves and small branches that had been knocked out of the trees by the hail. We found the same situation further on in Fredericksburg. If we had not waited in Gruene for two hours we would have been in the middle of this ferocious storm and with no protection.

Later I learned that to the North of us the town of San Marcos had hail stones the size of grapefruits. Imagine getting hit by one of those while toddling down the highway at 50mph on your cycle. It was as if God kept us in the eye of the hurricane. Other than getting mud on our bikes we arrived at our weekend retreat no worse for the wear.

The place we rented this year was about 8 miles northwest of Fredericksburg. I was a remodeled stone house that was built over 100 years ago.





















When we arrived at the house, we were greeted by Snoopy. Turns out Snoopy was better than a bug zapper. He would eat the June bugs attracted by the lights on the front porch. Terry would knock the bugs off the wall and Snoopy would devour them with a crunch, which made Katherine laughed so hard her stomach started hurting.














Even though Terry's right hand is visibly deformed in this photo, I posted it anyway since it was such a good shot of Joan...



Terry refused to be seen on a dirty bike, so first thing Friday morning we had to go to the car wash and knock some of the road grime off before heading to Enchanted Rock.
After making our cycles presentable, we rode to Enchanted Rock, with the ladies following along in the "three wheeler with a spare". We let those who needed to prove that they are still young climb to the top of the mountain.

No, we didn't try to go to the top. We were happy to track the others from below.

I just don't know why these two never trust my GPS...




From ER we headed to Coopers to over indulge in every kind of BBQ meat you can imagine. Once we finished gorging ourselves at Coopers, the girls headed back to the hacienda and the riders headed to Marble Falls, Willow City and then back to Fredericksburg.

Just to maintain consistency with other rides that we have been on, we made sure we went down a dirt road for about 8 or 9 miles on or way to Willow City (blasted GPS doesn't show paved versus dirt roads... It just shows that there is a road). The cool part of the off road experience was that it took us past an old abandoned railroad tunnel where we saw thousands upon thousands of bats flying out for a late afternoon bug run. We also got to play chicken with a cow. Her horns gave her the edge.

Terry said something about needing to go into town to "get some cash"...





Saturday dawned with an overcast sky even though the weather man said clear blue. What a great job to have... Fortunately, the skies cleared by about noon and we had bright sunshine and mild temperatures the rest of the day. This was good because Saturday was our day to ride the Three Sisters and you don't want to do that in the rain. Those of you who are bikers and have ridden in the Texas hill country will know what the three sisters are... For the rest of you - the three sisters are some of the pretties, most twisted, and most hilly roads you can ride in that area. The name comes from the fact that they are three highways (335, 336, and 337) that make a loop, with the little town of Leakey at one of the crossroads. If you've never been to Leakey, you need to put it on the list of things to do before you die (unless you're not a cycle enthusiast in which case there's no reason to go).

Here we are stopped at Leakey for a lunch break. Terry is telling Uncle Fester that we should have turned left about five miles back. The seventh grade class of Leakey was selling burgers to raise money to go to Big Bend. They should have been able to raise all they needed in one day since all it takes to get to Big Bend from Leakey is a tank of gas...

After making our contribution to the seventh grade class, gawking at the long line of motorcycles lining the streets, and resting our rears, we gassed up and ran the last two runs of the three sisters. Again, maintaining consistency with previous rides, we hit about a ten mile stretch of gravel road where they had torn up one of the three sisters to do road repairs. It wasn't the GPS's fault this time!!! We had a fun ride, seeing all kinds of wild life (not the two legged kind, even though they too were interesting). We saw elk, kangaroo, zebra, camel, cattle in the middle of the road, deer, and a dead porcupine on the side of the road.

We gassed up and headed home on Sunday, making a quick stop in Blanco to go shopping and have lunch. Blanco sports a small cycle shop that mostly sells cloting and boots, but down in the basement of the shop is a guy that moved from Sturgis and makes custom leather riding gear. I got a great looking leather vest with a screaming eagle patch on the back.

Uncle Fester's parting words as he was leaving my house were "where to next?" I don't know about him, but I'm heading to Arkansas next for my 25th wedding anniversary.

Remember when you were a kid and your family would go for a leisurely ride through the countryside after Church? Well, a few friends and I decided that we needed to see the wild flowers before the summer heat erased all traces of them. Uncle Fester, Troy and I met up in Katy and rode to Tomball, where Terry and Joan joined our parade. We headed through Navasota and on towards Brenham. At one time we had about eight or nine bikes in our group as others fell in behind.

Our plan was to turn south just before Brenham in a little town named Earlywine. The little country road we took out of Earlywine looked promising. The huge oak trees lining the road had grown together to form a green leafed tunnel, and the fields on either side were full of bluebonnets and other vividly colored flowers. We were really enjoying this part of our trip until all of the sudden the well paved road gave way to gravel. If your a Harley rider you will appreciate the significance of this change in road surface. Harleys are not really designed for off road service and most owners take better care of their Harley than their spouse (not saying much for Harley owners). Needless to say, I got a few raise eyebrows from my companions when we finally came to stop at the intersection where the gravel road met with the paved road that I was supposed to have taken them down. Those GPS are nice to have but they really don't show where asphalt ends and gravel begins. Not all of the riders were concerned though. Troy was riding a Honda (a borrowed one at that) and we all know that Honda riders are not as particular about their babies.

Above is the route we took. I'd recommend staying to the west of the Tomball area as there are too many moving road hazards on the weekend.