Ok, I decided to include a few shots from the night before the ride on Saturday as I thought the first shots will depict a place we may want to visit for future Rally Up Texas (RUT) meets or other motorcycle meet ups. It is called Boomer Jacks, and it has heaters for cold nights and fans with water misters for warm days. The food is great and normally the service is right on top of things. I went to the eye doctor to drop off my riding glasses to get them up to date with my current prescription as they now are 3 prescriptions old, and you thought I drove funny because of my age. Any way the visit was far longer then I anticipated so I did not get out until about 445 PM. So Val and I started sending test message back and forth and decided to meet up at Boomer Jacks. While waiting on her (so what else is new) to show up I took these shots.
So now your all wondering how do these rides come together that Pj never announces. Well this time of year they normally start off by watching the weather patterns, then some text messaging during the week saying something like “do you want to ride this weekend”, then the staff meeting the night before. I know most of my rides are not planned 98% not planned, so that is why I have started using “Call them all”. So for those of you on that list you ask, why did I not get a call, well in this crazy weather it is because the ride is a up to the minute go or no go decision. Sometimes it depends on the length of the staff meeting and how much we indulge in the libations. In fact for today’s ride I even packed for over night for “just in case”. Anyway here is the staff meeting shots the night before today’s ride.
So even with last nights staff meeting we were all calling and sending text message as to what time and where. The only thing we solved is what time and that was about 2 hours later then we planned at the staff meeting. As to the where, Willie took the lead until the first stop sign and said I do not know where we are going. I said south by southeast so I lead us up to 183 and south on 360, Philip then took the lead taking us 20 East. We stopped for some gas and we still did not know for sure where we were going so Philip offered up a couple of ideas and we said yes to either so we went on. So in other words we had no idea where we were going and we just kind of rode.
Here is the start point out of my driveway.
So all we know is that we are headed south by southeast and Philip mentioned we might go south on 45 as we passed it I thought to myself well he changed his mind. So we went a few miles and then started south on Dowdy Perry Road which ran into 45, so we took that south to Malloy Bridge road and headed East and went through Seagoville. Well after that Philip found 1389, which we took to Combine. From there he found an old road to traverse headed south thinking we should sooner or later run into something. Well here is one point we stopped. The road is only passable by two small cars.
As we traversed the road it got smaller and had potholes the size of biker killers, like in you might get a bent rim at the least if you hit one. We managed not to hit any of the real big ones and then we came upon some residence area that had more dogs then one can count. We had them chase us all over this pot hole filled road and in fact I thought this one big monster was going to swallow me and my bike whole. At our last stop pictured above, I had mentioned that if we need to turn back we might want to stop at sight XYZ that I saw. Willie said, we never turn back always forward, after getting chased by those dogs I was in full agreement and I would have rode threw a corn field (now in Texas we have cotton fields) if I had to just not to turn back. Thank God we did find our way back to a somewhat sane road, but I sure did enjoy the ride so far. It had all kinds of hazards but was beautiful being out in the middle of nowhere so close to Dallas. Those folks living there have it made.
We try another road south and all it does it loop us around back to the main road again. It is now getting to be mid afternoon and we are hungry and it is time to make some more decisions. So on the way back towards 45 we stop at the Trinity River bridge on Malloy Bridge Road and I take some shots and have a cold libation.
At the above stop we discuss our next destination and again agree to just ride. We get down to the 45 junction and Philip heads us further south to Ennis. He finds a Chili’s and we stop for a late lunch and discuss the next leg or our trip. I state that at this point either we head back towards home or if we head south I will stay over night some place. We then head up 287 towards home and stop for gas at Waxahachie. Again we are still discussing where to go, Philip mentions going to down town Fort Worth but they have something going on down there that did not sound like much fun so I said I was going to take 360 north. Well apparently Philip changed his mind again and when we came to 360 I turned north while Philip and Jim kept going on 287. They had the lead but I was not planning on going to Fort Worth. Willie followed me so I pulled over. We discussed what was going on and he decided to try to catch them. I told him I was headed home and would meet them there if they cared to. As I head up 360 I nearly get killed twice (oh and so did Philip and Jim headed up 287 when a big wreck occurred where a cop car almost rolled over on them) and I decided to take Trinity home. I was very thirsty and thought about stopping at a watering hole east on Trinity BLVD but decided to head West towards home. Well there used to be a place called the upper deck that was on Trinity BLVD headed West from 360 but it closed but as I passed it I saw folks on the deck so I decided to stop to see what’s up.
I did not take any pictures but I found this one of the view from the deck with Val in it. This would be another great place for meet ups and stuff. I like it as a place to have a cold one after a long southerly ride where I come back home using 360. Jay the bartender is very friendly and will take good care of you. It is now called Makuti Deck, I need to look that word up. They are having a Halloween Party Friday Oct 30th. I told him most of the folks I know will be on some type of ride that weekend. We are still trying to plan ours but now with that Hurricane headed our way, we are not sure of the weather conditions. I could just sit in this region as a low and bring gulf moisture up this way. The rain these lows this time of year can last for days. If you’re headed West on Trinity BLVD from 360 it is on the left at the top of the hill. You need to drive past it and then make a U turn. When headed East your first time you will most likely miss it as the drive comes up fast on you and you do not see it until you crest the hill. So now you got 2 U turns to make, no big deal as Trinity is 6 lanes in the stretch and the traffic normally is fairly open.
So I am at the bar and then I send a text message to Philip to see where they are. He says they are at the River Bottom Pub, I start laughing. Then I ask if Willie found them and they said no and that he was at my house. I send Val a note asking if Willie was still there, and she says what do you mean by still, he was not there yet. I was now busting a gut, we got to learn to communicate better. We all meet up at my house and that is when I learned that our Oldest dog Lady was in real bad shape. She is old, blind, kidney problems, bad back, and has not been eating much lately. I kind of figured her time was near so Val had already made arrangements to have her put down tonight and I fully agreed. The folks at the emergency animal hospital agreed we were doing the right thing. She gave us a lot of good years and will miss her. Here is a shot of her on the left and Scooter who is also gone now on the right. It was a great ride to bad it had to end with this, but we did really enjoy ourselves on the ride and Val and I with Lady.
Ride safe, have fun, and seize the moment.
Pj
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