What a ride today! It was as usual when having Val on the back of the bike a most interesting, fun, and yet challenging day.
I started off by riding the bike back up the hill and so Val took shots, and man I best post them.
We were told to take the 77d which is very scenic, and twisty. They were not kidding, this road in many areas makes the sisters look tame in my opinion. I rarely got over 20 mph, in fact just before we were done I was starting to loose the fun of the experience as unless we stopped the only thing I was doing was driving. The road was very short however and we stopped at least 3 times. The first time we come up to a pull off so I figure this must be a scenic overlook of some kind. Yes it was, but it was of HWY 44, oh boy.
We road up a short VERY short while on 77d and found this.
Another very short ride up the hill, by now most of you would have been getting annoyed by all my stopping, we find this place called Falls Creek. This guy comes up the hill on a sit down large lawn mower and I signal him to stop. For a young guy he sure was talkative, not too long but I thought he would have been glad to get rid of us, real friendly type. He told us that this was a youth camp and they have about 50K kids staying here, not all at once, for about 10 weeks during the summer. They even had a head just outside the gate leading towards the camp that decided to take advantage of.
After riding the 77d we get on Hwy 7 towards Lake of the Arbuckles. Before we get to the city of Sulphur we find a road and take it south. Here is what we find.
As it turns out we were down at “The Point” of Lake of the Arbuckles. So we head back north and get on Hwy 7 headed towards Sulphur and then to a place they call Little Niagara. Val being from the NY area as a kid wanted to see what they had. We turned down Hwy 177 and found the turn very shortly after. As we were running through the park we saw this sign “MotorCycles – Slippery Crossing Bridge Ahead”. Now I have ridden with Philip on some very slippery bridges and such with a little heavily moss covered trickle running across a low bridge but I was not prepared for what I found. As we made the down hill right turn we found a bridge with at least what looked like 2 inches of mossy water running across it. Just as we made the turn down the short hill Val asks, “your not going across that are we”, I respond at this point “We have no choice”. Well as for slippery it was not too bad but was much deeper then I anticipated. I hit the water doing about 8-12 mph and the water came up over the floorboards soaking my legs, crotch, and slowing the bike quickly. I just kept a little pressure on the throttle knowing it would be slick on the cement and I started getting nervous but we made it. As I roll back into the throttle going up the hill I ask Val if she was wet and she responded not badly and I say I am friggen soaked. The water was cold and now that the fear factor was abiding the feeling of the cold was hitting home.
Here is a shot of me in the parking lot of Little Niagara oh and by now I had road for some time so I was starting to dry out.
We walked over to the falls and though they were small it was scenic.
Val finds a butterfly and it lands next to here on this stone crossing.
Here are more shots of the area.
As we were relaxing here I knew this was a loop we were on and I was not sure if we would run across another water crossing. Well we did not but I found the one we crossed the first time, so I wanted to take some shots. Now while in the water I finally realized how slippery it was, I almost feel on my butt 3 times while trying to traverse it. Of course Val went nuts with the camera so here are all the shots.
Three misc. shots from the same bridge.
We left this area and continued down 177 to the Buckhorn park area. It is here that a deer jumps about 30 yards in front of us. When we get to the next stop I just had to tease Val about every time I have her on the bike we have some type of adventure. The deer got me going a bit slower as we traversed the back road towards the Buckhorn area. This place was cook, it had a fishing dock complete with fish cleaning areas and holes in some boards for the fishing polls.
As we were going along I saw this cool bridge and when I found a chance to stop I did. As Val dismounted this dog shows up and is real friendly. While I walked back down the road the dog stayed with her. I was hoping it would not try to chase us down the road but it stayed calmly behind.
Heading back north I really did not see any place to stop so we made our way back to our Cabin. We were hungry so I grilled up some double baked potatoes and pork chops. Later Val and I made a fire and sat outside just enjoying the evening.
Good end of a great day. Ride safe and have fun.
Pj
