It's time to get from the spectacular roads in west Texas to the Ozarks. That means a lot of miles. We are a bit late starting (due to time spent posting the blog). We are doing major slab (interstate) to get as far east as possible.
Highway 10 crosses Texas to San Antonio. We follow it to Junction City and head north in order to get on nicer roads and work our way to some T1 (excellent) roads. We get more excitement than expected. The higher speeds on Texas roads (up to 80mph limit on the big roads, and 70mph on the smaller roads) gets us to locations faster but... burn more fuel. The Pacific Coast that Ryan is riding has the smallest tank so he has the least range. Normally the PC can do 275km, but with the higher speeds and strong head winds, it is burning more fuel.
Ryan runs out of gas less than 1 km from the planned gas station. Jeff rescues him by buying a liter of water, drinking some, dumping the rest and filling the bottle with gas. (seems fuel container rules are more relaxed here). We have a bit of a delay and the new limit is set at 250km.
We get onto the secondary roads and enjoy the scenery, which has changed significantly from the desert. We have an Oh Fudge moment when rain has washed red slick mud across 10 feet of the road. Everyone hauls on the binders, there is a bit of slipping and sliding, but no one goes down - Whew! Ryan and Jeff are behind us and Josh holds back to warn him. Without a lot of experience, this could be bad news. Good luck, a bug has found it's way into his shirt. He stops to get rid of it and that means slow through the mud. Actually, the bugs are incredible along this stretch of road. Cipi does an emergency stop to get rid of a bug in his t-shirt.
We see our first Armadillo in the field, munching on (whatever Armadillos eat). These are weird animals.
Highway 10 crosses Texas to San Antonio. We follow it to Junction City and head north in order to get on nicer roads and work our way to some T1 (excellent) roads. We get more excitement than expected. The higher speeds on Texas roads (up to 80mph limit on the big roads, and 70mph on the smaller roads) gets us to locations faster but... burn more fuel. The Pacific Coast that Ryan is riding has the smallest tank so he has the least range. Normally the PC can do 275km, but with the higher speeds and strong head winds, it is burning more fuel.
Ryan runs out of gas less than 1 km from the planned gas station. Jeff rescues him by buying a liter of water, drinking some, dumping the rest and filling the bottle with gas. (seems fuel container rules are more relaxed here). We have a bit of a delay and the new limit is set at 250km.
We get onto the secondary roads and enjoy the scenery, which has changed significantly from the desert. We have an Oh Fudge moment when rain has washed red slick mud across 10 feet of the road. Everyone hauls on the binders, there is a bit of slipping and sliding, but no one goes down - Whew! Ryan and Jeff are behind us and Josh holds back to warn him. Without a lot of experience, this could be bad news. Good luck, a bug has found it's way into his shirt. He stops to get rid of it and that means slow through the mud. Actually, the bugs are incredible along this stretch of road. Cipi does an emergency stop to get rid of a bug in his t-shirt.
We see our first Armadillo in the field, munching on (whatever Armadillos eat). These are weird animals.
Most of the Armadillos that we see are squashed on the road. They blow up when hit by a vehicle and parts are scattered everywhere. It's almost like the armour holds the inside parts while the pressure builds and then one section gives and all the guts blow out. Luckily, this area has the smaller units. They grow to be as large as small pigs. Hate to hit one of those.
It's starting to get dark as we roll into Llano, where we plan to get a room at the Best Western. There is a Blues festival in town and we are looking forward to a beer and live music. Hey, there sure a a lot of Harley guys (and girls) wearing these yellow club vests. Every motel has a big group in the parking lot, chatting and drinking beer. Come to think about it, we saw quite a few on the roads leading into town. The best western lot is full of yellow vested harleys and we are greeted by a no vacancy sign. It is Memorial Day weekend and the rooms were booked a long time ago. The kind ladies behind the desk start phoning around for vacancies. There is one room with a King 100 miles away. That's not going to work.
We finally find two rooms in Burnett, 40 miles away but are told that the motel is tired. Well, beggars can't be choosers so off we go. It's dark ... deer are out ... and it starts raining. Tom rides up front with his spot lights on. I ride beside him with the LEDs, which light up both sides of the road. The combination works ... as long as there are no oncoming vehicles, when we are forced to power down to low beam. During one of these low light sections, we don't see a gooey pile of squashed rodent and some of the bikes run over the stuff - good thing the rain cleans as we drive.
The Motel is OLD, but the linens are clean so we take the unit. The beds are doubles, not queens, so it's good we are accustomed to tight quarters, or this could have been uncomfortable. No room for the pillows that mark the DMZ and silence the "night winds". Tomorrow we need to cover a lot of territory and we agree to start early.
Cipi gets the day started at 6:30. It's overcast and looks like rain. The skies start spitting as we head to the local breakfast joint but open up as we park for breakfast. We meet a group of seniors on Sunday brunch, who are amazed that anyone would be out in this rain. One guy is a hockey fan so there is a basis for conversation. Outside, a river is forming at the side of the road. Keeping the depth gauges in mind at stream crossings, the plan is changed. The local tour of scenic roads is replaced with a mad dash north to get out of the rain.
The plan works and we find ourselves out of the crappy weather in a few hours, but, the radar app shows we are in between two systems, one to the east, the other to the west. No stopping until we are in the clear, which happens in Decatur, a small quaint town near the Oklahoma border. It's here that we find time to eat lunch, at "Sweetie Pie's Ribeyes" The food is spectacular including a unique method of preparing baked potatoes, which are dipped into a vat filled with melted pine rosin. The rosin keeps a steady 190F which produces a perfect potato. When done, the potato is served in paper to kept he rosin off patrons. The spud takes on a unique rosin character, but you can't eat the skin because the pure rosin is bitter.
We cross the Red River into Oklahoma but can't take a picture at the welcome sign since it is placed in a bad location.
Tomorrow, we hit the nice twisty roads and just hope that the rain stays away (i think we'll get wet)
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