Day One
Well as usual I got a late start in that I set the alarm for 6 PM not 6 AM so I got up about 1 hour late which put me into traffic hour and sure enough WFAA reported two accidents on my planned route, so, I did not get kick stand up until 0930. We (Jim (Scooter Express), Philip, and myself held a discussion on the feasibility of the trip Wednesday night as I was boarder line on going Tuesday due to the logistics of leaving Friday night with Jim and my thoughts of just going directly to Huntsville. It was the heat that was my concern as some of you know I have a somewhat low heat tolerance. So we decided I would head to Waco in the cool of the morning and get a room for Jim and I on day one and then ride from Waco to Carlos on day two as Jim would be arriving in the evening on day one.
I took 360 south to 157 to 2258 heading over to 35W south. 157 south was a really twisty road, and I wish I took some pictures but it was getting warm fast so I did not stop. 2258 had just been surfaced and it too was a very nice ride. I will do that again. Panhead told me it was due to when they were putting in the Gas drilling rigs they really tore up the roads and I was lucky they had finished the resurfacing. Grey Beard later told me that there were some other roads I could have taken to Waco instead of popping out on 35. Well anyway here is a shot of a little picnic area off of 35 I stopped to take a break.
As you can see I am in flat lands at this point, in fact with all of the corn fields around 2258 and this part of the country I thought I was in Wisconsin or some other north central state.
I got to the Quality Inn at about 1230 in Waco and, the room was not ready so I rode over to Hooters for lunch. I quickly found out that I could have walked. I had the crab legs which were over priced for the quantity but I was warned of that and enjoyed them anyway. I had a bowl of clam chowder to fill me up. It was good. I then went back to the hotel and the room was ready and it was really nice. A bit pricey at $99 but again as the with the crab legs, worth it. They had an indoor hot tub and swimming pool.
I called Jim to let him know where I was and he informed me that Dennis and Cece are also thinking about coming. So after a few discussion with Denis sure enough they came down.
After getting settled in I checked the RUT web site and there was a private message from Panhead giving me his number in case we wanted to meet up. So I called him and I am glad I did. It was great getting to meet him. He wanted to go on our ride but his starter switch had gone out and it was not your normal motor cycle starter switch in that it is a 3 position switch like that of a car where to start it you would let go of the key once the engine was running and it would go back to the run position. He literally went all over town looking for one. Later we did find out he got one. So he and I met up for a short time and he left just as Jim showed up from Dallas. Jim was disappointed he missed him but much to our pleasant surprise Neal (Panhead) was still in the area so he came back to the Hotel. Jim, Neal, and I waited on Dennis and Cece and they showed up so we all went to Dinner after this shot in the hotel room
Left to right is Jim, Dennis, Cece, and Neal.
We then went to Hooters for dinner as folks were getting tired and did not want to ride someplace else to dinner. It would have been cool to go to Buzzard Billy’s (I think I have the name right) on the Brazos river. I saw it riding through town and Neal mentioned it to me on the phone earlier. I later remembered that Val and I stopped there once when we took a trip to San Antonio and it was cool and good food. Here we are at hooters.
Jim grabbed the camera and took this shot just as the hostess with the mostess came up and jumped into the shot.
It was great that Dennis and Cece came down and that we got to meet Panhead (Neal).
DAY 2
Well we got up early but the humidity was already high as you can see this first picture captured it some how. Not sure if it was really that hazy or the camera was temporarily fogged over.
We are in front of our hotel.
Jim grabbed the camera again.
We stopped a couple of times to get gas and at one of the stops this younger women walks up to us to ask if she could use one of our cell phones to activate a phone service she just got and she needed to make a call very badly as I think she said her dad was in the hospital and the pay phone would not allow her to do the job. So I pulled mine out but I was not about to hand it over to her just incase they did something to my phone by mistake and this is a business phone that I do not need to have interrupted because of some mistake. Well it was quite a process and after trying to answer all of their mechanized questions the system got frustrated with me and I got frustrated by it so finally I get a real person. Now that was about at much fun as the mechanized system. The lady must have been from northern state or some place else on the globe. She talked way too fast and I had to keep asking her to repeat herself. By now I am getting the evil eye from our group as to say, nice going Mr nice guy now get this going. They know I have not yet used the facilities nor have I had a smoke yet. Anyway the funny part of this whole thing is that I got to learn an awful lot about the young lady in a very short time. It would be a great segway for young people to introduce themselves to other as in the 10 minutes I was going through the process, I knew her name, age, zip code and some other minor stuff like phone numbers etc.,. So we looked at each other at some point and I introduced myself after saying “now that I know you better then folks I have known for some time, my name is Pj”. We finally get on the road again.
We are still ahead of schedule for the meet n greet so I see this “Veterans park” and pull into it. Man it was great. Here some of the shots which did not capture more then ¼ of the whole park.
On these walls are engraved the names of fallen Texan’s in wars past and present.
Under this pavilion was a little kiosk that you could look up names and such. It was really well done and very well up kept. I was quite impressed and over whelmed by the sights and thoughts.
We went rolling past the turn off for the meet n greet so Jim called Paul and gave me his phone when Paul put BA on the line. Man I am glad we stopped and asked for directions as we did pass the turn off.
Here are the shots of the meet n greet. Everyone was very friendly and it was great to put faces with RUT call signs.
I went on to my normal walking around and exploring. Man the grounds were great and this is one party place. I will let the photo’s do the talking.
The bathrooms in the building to the right were immaculate and air conditioned.
I came around to the back of the Tavern and found some folks and more interesting shots so I took more pictures, actually someone else grabbed the camera.
Now this is scary, Paul with a mechanical staple gun putting up Rut cards on the wall. We were commenting that he best not staple Gabby’s hand to the wall. She is behind him in this shot so you might only make out part of her.
I saw this ride and decided to take a shot of it.
Dennis reported his oil was low so I told him if he wanted to head directly back to Huntsville I would ride a long just in case. It was getting quite hot and I would ready to hit the road in either case as I was getting concerned that it was getting nearly uncomfortable out. It just so happened the rest of the crowd was getting ready so Dennis decided it should be ok to take the next leg of the trip. Jim heads off to get gas just before we start our trek to the next stop. Some of these pictures are taken by others and I “stole them” from their ride reports. If anyone minds let me know and I will take them out.
Here is a shot from our support vehicle driven by, Texadan, Texaslady, and Tatorman a great family and we are thank full for them. I stole this particular shot of all of us, that is me riding the in the rear behind the trike. The 429 East was a very cool windy road.
I did not get a shot of the name of the next stop so I stole this one from Wind another real great person.
The rest are from my camera of Drifters.
Well it was getting very hot and so I talked to a few people to tell them that I was going to by pass the last stop and trip and take off for Huntsville via the 1375 through Sam Houston national forest. Man it was a great road tall trees and much cooler. I see the lake so I decide to pull over and take some shots of the road and Lake Conroe. As it turned out there was another place to stop that had a better view of the Lake but I did not stop.
We got to the Sam Houston Place hotel and checked in. Once settled, Jim, Dennis, and Cece went to the pool while I took my afternoon nap. I woke up a short time later and then the rest of the crowd showed up. At the end of this report I will put all of the links from the other ride reports as you will then see what we missed. They told us they got a little sprinkle of a rain and it was much cooler, just my luck to miss that. Once they all got settled in, we headed next door to dinner, man the food was great and a lot of it.
We all talk over rides and places and just plain enjoy each others company and walk back to our hotel. I took some shots while we kind of mulled around. I thought this was a cool one. This is BA’s better half Lilnae.
Lilnae
Paul
Jim
BA and his stogy
We all were fairly tired and wanted to get up early so most of us went off to bed shortly after chatting for awhile.
DAY 3
I took this shot of the sign of the Sam Houston Place hotel as based on the occupancy percentage I have a feeling they will not be in business over the long haul. They had fairly clean rooms and an out door pool. The staff was friendly and let me park my bike in front under the roof as I thought it might rain that night plus the night time guy could see it better.
We got kick stands up at about 720AM. The weather was nice and cool with some rain clouds in the area. BA took the lead and we made good time and had plenty of appropriately made stops. Grey Beard was talking last night about this great place called Sam’s and sure enough it was a great place. It had a nice gift shop and a buffet. Paul and Gail where already there but they had left some time after we did, I could not believe my eyes. They said they were driving slow, but I think it was a bit faster then that. I was not hungry and neither was Dennis, Cece, or Jim so we talked about heading on down the road. We decided to do that so I went back in side to say my good byes and we took off.
Here is a shot of the bikes at Sam’s.
We got to Corsicana and it looked like the chances of a heavy rain where quite high so I called Val and she said they were headed East but not yet to 45 so we took off again. She also mentioned there was rain in Ennis and that we would get a bit wet at that point. Well she was right, we turned down 287 and we got some rain, but mostly a very light rain. Slightly more then a sprinkle, just enough to get the bottom part of my pant legs wet and dirty my bike. I pulled off into the speedway to kind of wait it out and use the facilities. Here are a few shots.
You can see the facilities to the right in this shot. “Out Houses”
They had cancelled the days races and were looking to lock up where we were so off we went. But they did say they would wait to lock up this section last so we had a bit more time.
We were getting hungry so we stopped at On the Boarder in Arlington and had lunch and then took off up 360. Jim and I stopped for our end of the trip beer at Dukes and up came this trike.
We got a guy to take a shot of the two of us saluting a good and safe ride. It was a lot of fun and the RUT family did not let me down, they were all friendly, approachable and warm folks.
You all have a good day.
Pj
We may find some side roads to Waco depending on how early we hit the road. I would like to stay at a hotel in Waco next to the river. Looks like La Quinta Inn has good rates and good write ups. On Wednsday we would hit Victoria or Corpus Christi and stay over night. We would then explore around that area on Thursday and then head to New Braunfels on Friday. We would stay where the other Rally Up Texas riders are and hit the Meet n Greet Saturday, October 10th. From there it looks like the group wants to hit Luckenback and Fredericksburg so I would like to take Val to the Devil's back bone Tavern.
