Hill Country: Special Places and People

We got back from the Hill Country Sunday night but this is my first opportunity to post anything. The ride, the roads and the company were great. This was truly my best backroads adventure ever and I owe some special thanks to those who helped make it so.

First and foremost, my Wonderful Wife who helps support this crazy passion of mine and is fine being the occasional single parent while I ride off into the sunset.

Second, to my two companions on this jaunt. Red and the Black Power Ranger are awesome. Red carried all the baggage and groceries all weekend, grilled up great grub and ran point through most of the riding, even when he did not know where we were or how to get there! He even slowed down on some of the best roads in Texas so I could catch or keep up. In addition to having excellent taste in motorcycles, BPR is a heck of a guy with an awesome sense of humor and great camera skills. Who else can take pictures from a moving bike with and SLR? And have them turn out great? They are also some of the few people on the planet with the patience to put up with me!
I must say that the people in and around Leakey are some of the nicest I have ever had the pleasure to meet. They were a big part of the reason this ride was so special.

First on this list was the manager of the River Bluff Cabins. Melody (sorry I didn’t catch your last name), the manager was simply incredible. She handled changes to the dates, number of days, arrival times and the special needs of motorcyclists with efficiency and a smile. She took care of us like family (the ones you like) rather than just customers. The cabins were nice, well equipped and had great views. If you are planning a trip to the area near Leakey I recommend this place highly. It is a little tough to find so make sure you get directions. Stop in at the office and you will likely see the above picture on the wall. You can find them in the real world at:
389 Cooper Mountain Road,
Rio Frio, TX 78879
Phone: (830) 232-5775

So how would you react if three goofballs on bikes showed up just before closing time and purchased too many groceries including a whole case of 20oz Dublin Dr. Pepper? Most people would be a bit surly to say the least but everyone in the Leakey Mercantile was friendly and helpful. They offered to deliver the groceries for us and when Red the Single Minded politely insisted on packing it all onto his FatBoy offered up a box to help make sure it stayed stable on the way back to the cabin! They were even friendly the second night when all we bought was a couple pound of hamburger and buns. All this despite being the only grocery store around. I don’t have a virtual world address for them but they can be found in the real world at:
Leakey Mercantile
US Hwy 83 & RM 337
Leakey, Texas 78873
Phone: (830) 232-6299
Another neat find was the Garven Store. This little gas station, cafe, and T-Shirt shop sells the best Buffalo jerky I have ever had and a darned good BBQ sandwich. According to the sign they have been doing so since 1932 and they do it with a smile. Check out their T-Shirt selection in the back room and the peacocks behind the store.
Garven Store
27304 N. Highway 83
Mountain Home, Tx. 78058
Phone: (830) 640-3235
Growing up in Texas I remember a lot of people with the same friendly, helpful outlook on life. Sadly, this seems to be on the decline here in Houston and probably other parts of Texas as well. I think we are all a little poorer for it but I am really glad to see that some of that Texas hospitality lives on in and around Leakey.

Thanks to all of you!

Bound for the Texas Hill Country!

The good Lord willin’ and the creeks don’t rise...

I will be bound for the Hill Country in about 60 hours or so (not that I am counting the hours down or anything). If you count Austin proper as the Hill Country I have been many times, mostly on business and always in the car. If you don’t, I have made it out there twice; once for the Texas Miata Round Up and once for the Harvest Classic. Ok, so there were also a few camping trips to Canyon Lake and New Braunfels too; so sue me.

In any case, I came away from the Round Up and the Harvest Classic so impressed that I have been using every opportunity to harass anyone and everyone I can find into taking a trip out there on two wheels. I have finally succeeded.

Red and the Black Power Ranger finally had enough of my extolling the virtues of the Hill Country and given in, probably to make me stop whining. We are taking a long weekend to ride up and attend the Harvest Classic. We will, knocking all the wood within reach, be leaving Friday morning to ride to the Frio by way of the brewery in Shiner (yes, that Shiner), Luling (BBQ at the Market), Medina, and 337. Once there we have a cabin reserved and pan to smoke cigars, char and consume meat as well as some adult beverages around an open fire. The next morning we are off to Hunt for a view of Stonhenge and then on to the Harvest Classic for vintage bike overload. This will be followed by more riding, more meat, beverages and fire.

We will be heading back Sunday to rejoin the civilized world where cigars, meat and fire is generally frowned upon. Unless of course, Red decides on another one of his “cool down rides.” After all we will only be about 100 miles from Old Mexico...

Counties and States I have visited this year

On a forum recently I noticed a signature line that contained a little map of states the person had visited. I have seen these before and never got really excited about it but as I start to plan out my “Great Ride” for next year (more on that later) I decided to see if I could find out how these were done. I found a number of sites but the one I decided to use to track my future travels is from epgSoft and can be found here: http://www.epgsoft.com/VisitedStatesMap/VisitedStatesMap.html

I have visited two states this year (yes, I am cheating by including the state I live in) and here is my map:In browsing the different sites that that came up in my searches I also found a neat site that may now be offline. It tracks the counties you have visited. Based on what I can remember I have covered 24 of the 254 counties in Texas and 1 parish in Louisiana. If the weather holds for next weekend I will add to that number and pass the 10% mark of Texas counties!

Here is the link to the site: http://counties.visitedmap.com/

Hopefully it will be back up soon.

And here is my map from the site:

Kinda cool in a funky old dude sort of way...

Bad news from H-D

For fans of Harley Davidson, and especially Buell, motorcycles yesterday was not a good day. Company performance was better than the previous quarter but still down dramatically from 2008. The company announced a new “Delivering Results Through Focus” strategy to get back on track. Unfortunately for Buell fans and employees part of this strategy is the closure of that division. MV Augusta will be sold off as well. The entire press release can be found here:
http://www.harley-davidson.com/wcm/Content/Pages/HD_News/Company/newsarticle.jsp?locale=en_US&articleLink=News/0581_press_release.hdnews&newsYear=2009&history=news

A farewell message from Erik Buell can be seen here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5i7JDNACtI

My heart goes out to him as it is painfully obvious that his is broken.

For more information on this amazing man, the history of the brand and the vision check these links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erik_Buell
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0KJI/is_8_118/ai_n16702057/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buell_Motorcycle_Company

When the production of the Buell Blast was canceled earlier this year a photo of a crushed Blast on the Bonneville salt was posted on the Buell web site. It appears to have been prophetic for more than just the blast...