… fired up and truckin’!
Whatha… Sorry… I just had an ’80’s flashback! Alyssa and I are hittin’ the high road tomorrow. There is about 1000 miles of road between us and the Briar Patch… 100+ tempuratures and all that… everything.
Man-O-Man, did the winger really show what it’s made of today! This bike… is a heavy tourer! I handles the road better than I do. I’m the one holding back. Riding within my limits… hanging back in the 55 to 60 mph zone… easing off on the trottle rather than leaning fully into those long turns. I’m uneasy… I fight the relentless west Texas wind. But man… there is a big difference in fighting the wind at 45 and fighting the wind at 65. Look at the mileage I gobbled up today. 396 miles… with stops, in 10 hours.
An awesome day! Four stars, full bore, send up the flag at Pancho’s, off the hook, awesome! Yeeeee-haa!
On very rare occasions, I manage to slip into that zone where I start to get reasonably good pictures. It’s all connected… the desert, the road, time alone and the bikes. They’re all catlysts to the effect I desire. Precious moments dearly purchased. I knew today was a jem before I even reached Fort Davis.
So here they are.. the raw set I took today. The panoramics have been excluded because they’re not edited yet. But these… these are the unedited single shots I took today. Edited only for size.
Hailee, here’s the pic I promised. On location in Sierra Blanca, Texas… here.
Oh… and a working gallery… here!
I am particularly fond of 22, 23, 30,40 and 41. I like those windows and the flash was really working for me baby!
Man… do I need a subject. A pretty girl standing beyond those opening, with her hand up shading her eyes… a hand puppet with a McDonald’s cup and a straw… whatever!
Like any successful desert dweller, I was up early… packed and rolled. Stopped for a tasty breakfast and hot a cup of joe at the Exxon station across the highway from the motel. There was a marvelous full moon hanging there in the deep azure pre-dawn sky. I buttoned up, locked it down and headed west… out past the last causeway into the deep trans-pecos desert.
I love this open area out beyond Del Rio. It’s sad to say but the entire first day is pretty much just fleeing San Antonio and that haughty hill country sprawl. All them snooty folks with money that have bought up every square inch of the hill contry and fenced it. Gotta get past that first… and every year there is more and more of it to get past.
Alrighty! Got off to somewhat staggered start this morning. I missed my connection with Ed Perry in New Braunfels… who had most graciously offered to ride along with me out into the hill country. It’s alright, the magic of cell phones allowed us to eventually connect and we headed west on Hwy. 46. We stopped at the Whataburger in Bourne for breakfast. Then south and out through Bandera, westward to Leakey, from there onward to Camp Wood. Ed an I parted in Camp Wood. There was one thing that was about out of the ordinary. There was this dude set up along side the road outside Vanderpool. He was taking shots of the bikers riding by then posting them for sale on his website.
See Ed’s photos here. See mine here.
From Camp Wood, I headed south. I stopped just south of the Nueces River, (New-Aces Ree-Ver) and ‘buttoned up’ for travel desert motorcycle travel. Just south of there, I turned southwest on FM 334. I have to pause here and say that the drive out FM 334 was really the jewel of the entire first day. 2 lane black-top with no shoulder… wildly blue open skies… flowing fields of range grass growing right up to the pavement… the occasional hunting camp… there ain’t nuttin’ out FM 334. I rolled into Del Rio about 2PM. Easing through the traffic lights along Veteran Blvd., I started to become somewhat concerned with Maltov’s tempurature gauge. It was awfully hot! 100+ temps today! After a bit of a search… I managed to hole up in a room out in Diablo East, along US90 just this side of the western Amistad causeway.
Today is my last day of school. Ya know us teachers have to come in and confirm all our grades and do all that teachery stuff we teachers do after the kids are gone. My check list is done… my keys are turned in… room 510 is strangely dark and silent… the only sound is the air conditioner. Here in just a second or two, after a post this, I’ll be turning the air conditioner off… unplugging my hard drive for the last time this year, packing it away in it’s little case and pulling the door closed behind me and leaving. So much for the very last day of my fifth year at Seguin High School.
It’s always sort of sad.
