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A true writer I am not but I hope to share some trips here on this forum for not only others but for me as well. With being 51 years young, the one thing I have learned to do is seize the moment and keeping a place to read and remember trips, early riding and writing mistakes, and the over all great memories of a good trip is something I want to do. I hope you enjoy my journal and please feel free to comment on any aspect. I do not look to become a literate giant but comments to help improve my stories through better writing are also welcome.



My bike in my drive way.

We took off out of the Kawasaki dealership at 114 & 121 in Grapevine at about 0930 AM. It was going to be a hot day so we knew we would not get that many miles in. We left with a bunch of guys who rides together from time to time as part of the dealership. We had about 20 riders on the first half of the trip. Our destination was Muenster Texas via the back roads.
The ride was quite nice but I soon came to realize that I prefer not to ride in a large pack (I never had the ambition to do this type of riding) because there were quite a few places had I been alone or with close friends we would have stopped and taken in the scenery. My buddy Philip was with me and the group. Philip and I later talked about at least two places we would have stopped and checked out. I am not a heavy handed lets see how many miles I can run non-stop type of rider (in some circles I would be called a poser). I ride for the enjoyment, the scenery and to meet with the locals (mostly interacted with in small town bars/restaurants). I can tell you some of the best stories in local little bars while throwing back a beer. Since we are riding motorcycles I do not throw back much more then 1 sometimes two if there is food.

The ride to Muenster consisted of: 114 West to Boyd then north on FM 730 through Decatur to FM 455. Left on FM 455 hard right (East) on FM 922 to FM 373 north right into Muenster.

Once we stopped at a very good restaurant me and Phil said our goodbyes and took off West on 82. When they asked where we were going we said West then maybe North. They kind of looked at us funny as we really had no idea where we would end up. We then headed north on 81 to Oklahoma. Thank God we decided to stop for gas on 82 at Nocona since Ringgold had no gas that I could see and by this time we used up most of our gas. We would have been SOL had we stopped at Ringgold as planned. We decided to head towards the Red River. We stopped there and took a couple of pictures.


Philip on the bridge over the Red River.


Philip by the Red River sign and the Chisholm trail sign.


My buddy Philip next to the Oklahoma sign. Had to do it.




By this time is was getting rather warm and with no wind we decided to head north to 32 in Oklahoma then head East on 32. On the map we had it looked like 32 was close to the Red River and thought it would be a nice road. Man it was the most desolate road I have been on for quite sometime. Highway 32 is 51 miles of nothing but grasshoppers and heat. Thank God again we did not break down as we had no water and in 40 miles only saw 3 cars. You crash on that road and you become buzzard food. We then got to Marietta Oklahoma thirsty and hungry and we wanted a beer but being Oklahoma (not trying to pick on that good state) there was not much in the way of food or beer there. So we headed on ward to Gainesville Texas where we stopped at Chilies restaurant. The locals were great, had good food, cold beer and great conversation. We then started to get real tired and decided we would stay the night in the area. The bar tender told us the Holiday Inn Express (located just across the highway 35) was next to a biker bar. We called another buddy Paul, who is pictured on the last page, who wanted to go with us in the first place and asked us to call him if we were going to stay over night someplace. We figured there is no way at 4PM he would want to head out to stay over night. Well we were wrong and he hit the road hard to get to Gainesville by sometime after 6PM. We got a suite (2 beds and a pullout) and decided to hit the town. We went to the biker bar and found it rather boring and rough but played some pool and had 1 beer. We like local little places but I want to feel like I have a chance of getting out alive without needing a bazooka. We went back to Chilies and had a couple of beers and decided it was high time for the hot tub. Man did that feel good. Slept like a baby and woke up at 5 AM ready to start the day. The other two guys, Phil and Paul being 10 years younger decided to stay up a bit later and therefore were not up until after 7 AM. The Holiday Inn had a nice breakfast and man Paul can eat like a horse. He had at least two of everything including a huge bowl of cereal.

We then hit the road once again heading south. We had no plan in fact Phillip took lead position and just started making turns on roads that headed in the general direction of home. Man the roads were great and the scenes were also very nice. We rode 55 miles and it felt like 15 miles. It was cool, entertaining (lots of curves and such), and scenic for Texas anyway. We took 902 to 377 through Tioga and Pilot Point. I want to go back and visit those cities on some Friday or Saturday. Looked like some cool places to stop and converse with the locals, but not on a Sunday. Remember beer laws in Texas.


This is a picture of our buddy Paul who drove in last night for our journey South. Paul is on the left.

Motorcycle Trip – October 12th 2007 – Mineral Wells area Texas

I took Friday off so I started the trip alone at about 2:15PM on Friday. I took the back roads through Fort Worth from Euless. Hwy 10 to Belknap is a fairly nice ride especially when you catch all of the stop lights green. Once riding on Belknap things started to go very slow due to inner city traffic and school zones until out of town on 1886 and 730 south. Both 1886 and 720 are very easy roads to ride and a bit scenic for Texas flat lands. If you’re from out of the area over 200 miles I would not travel all the way here for this road trip.

The actual roads taken: Hwy 10 west to Belknap (Hwy 10 changes names a few times and Belknap is the final name on this trip). 377 (Denton Hwy) north to Broadway west to Long Avenue west to Jacksboro Hwy north to 1886 west to 730 south to 180 East to Hwy 20 west to exit 408 in Weatherford.

Due to a big wedding in Mineral Wells we decided to set up base camp in Weatherford. I found us a room at the Comfort Suites Hotel. Philip and Paul where going to execute plan F and ride up Friday night. The reason I say plan F is that we had so many contingency plans and base plan changes that it became hard to keep track. Plan A was to camp at the Mineral Wells state park originally talked about by Kelly another friend. He did not know when this would happen just that it would. Another plan was for another rider friend (aka TC) to join us for the weekend run and yet another plan was to use hotels instead of camping. Taking the equipment to camp would have been logistically hard without Kelly and his bike trailer and we only had two weekends in October when we could pull this off so we had to not count on the first plan of camping. TC could not make it either as he had other things going so could not get it all together in time for a go decision. The final decision had to be made at 11AM on Friday (the same day I was planning on leaving) if he was going to go or not so I could make hotel accommodations. As it turned out I decided to wing it instead of setting up reservations. Now that would have been a mistake if my target was Mineral Wells as Mineral Wells was the target location. I called a couple of hotels in Mineral Wells early in the week and that is when I learned of the big wedding going on. Mineral Wells is a small town.

I stopped at this little gas station on 730 and ran across a nice young lady who had her child running around in diapers. The store did not have much of a selection and most of the shelves were empty. I expect that place will not be open much longer. I asked her if she knew of a place near by where I could get a burger and beer and she said “you can get the burger here but this is a dry county”. My heart just about stopped so I asked more questions like “what about a Chilies or something”. She said oh, yes there is one not to far from here and that she thought I meant a dive. She did not finish the last word but I knew what she was thinking. I standing in front of her with my motorcycle stuff on, a lot of people get the idea that we (motorcyclists) do not enjoy or can afford a little class in our lives. After further discussion while I am drinking my Gatorade she tells me I can also pick up beer down a ways on Hwy 20. I take the route to Hwy 20 since I was told from the intersection of 730 and 180 by a couple in a pickup truck that taking 180 East to 20 is the fastest way. They did not mention west to 51 then north to 20 and am I glad they did not mention that as the traffic there would have been hell as I later learned. I had to ask them since I really did not think the young women with the child at the small store really had all of the oars in the water. Anyway I was able to locate beer and knew I was not far from some decent hotels. I had too much stuff on my bike to buy beer at this time so I headed west on 20 to find a room I ran across a hotel corridor at exit 408 and Hwy 20 and went to a couple different hotels and found the Comfort Suites Hotel was priced fair and was clean.

The Comfort Suites Hotel was fairly good but the hot tube did not work so that took a great deal of the Comfort out of the stay. We sleep well both nights however and the room was clean and Paul was able to once again eat them out of house and home for the morning free breakfast. It was located right next to Hwy 20 and 51 which was a traffic hell in Weatherford. The cost was $109 with two beds and a pull out for the third person.


At the hotel, Left to right Paul and Philip.

After unloading the bike and getting settled in I headed back East on 20 to get beer. The trip was only 6 miles. As I was leaving I saw a fire truck and police car heading West on 20 and then the traffic heading west stopped. I thought that when I go to return back to the hotel I would be stuck in traffic forever and would end up drinking all of the beer, NOT! But I would have had a couple someplace on the side of the road. Well the police must have cleared the problem in record time because by the time I ran 6 miles at 65 or 70 MPH and started back Hwy 20 west bound was cleared. I have beer for all three of us loaded up and forgot poor Paul drinks Coors Light instead of Miller Light. He was able to suffer this one night however. I of course drink good beer, Budweiser and I did remember that.

By the time Philip and Paul started to leave I was starving so I went to BK Steak house (Burger King) and grabbed a burger and fries to go and ate in the Gazebo at the hotel with one of my newly purchased cold beers.

Philip and Paul arrive some time after about 7PM so we head to Chilies so they can have some dinner. People out in these smaller town areas are so great to deal with.

Saturday Morning:

As usual I am the first one up and I get some coffee and await the sleeping beauties Philip and Paul. Philip gets up followed by Paul, it seems we all eat individually in the morning as there is sometime between each persons wake up time. We do not run by a clock on these bike runs and that is ok by me as I like to take my time getting ready anyway. When Philip sets his mind on something he really is hard to sway away from it. Friday night he kept talking about Hwy 20 to Hwy 4 and I kept saying lets take the back roads further south then ride up Hwy 4. Well we stopped at this gas station for a break and sure enough he talked to someone who said we should stay on 20 until we hit 4. We later learned that we would have got more scenery by going further south then north on 20 but that is Philip. We head on 20 for a few more miles until we hit Hwy 4 and then the fun begins. Of course I had to give him crud stating that I would not get off back roads again on this trip. Running at 65 and above is too much work and not a lot of sight seeing. Hwy 4 turns out to be a great trip and we again stop at a gas station for a break and a guy in the station suggests we take 4 north to 180 then west to 16 north then catch 4 again back south. That turns out to be a great suggestion and we found a cool spot to stop.


Under an old bridge that you do not realize your on from the top.


A shot at Possum Kingdom Lake Dam

We planned to stop at some choke and pukes around Possum Kingdom lake but for what ever reason we passed all of the roads leading us right to the lake. So when we got to Mineral Wells we decided to stop at a place called Lonestar Bar and Grill which my food sucked and Philip and Paul who have plebian tastes liked their Chicken Fried Stakes. I jokingly told them I would not BBQ for them ever again since if they would eat and like that junk, their complements on my cooking would not mean anything. The beer was real cold but I ordered a Hamburger steak and maybe I have been spoiled by the likes of my own cooking and a few good steak houses as what I got was two dried up Burger King style burger patties with finely diced onions that must have been sitting in butter all day. The fries were the worse I ever ate and both Philip and Paul liked them. They were soggy undercooked (most likely micro waved) things that resembled the look of French fries.


Here is a picture of the place we choked.

One of our plans was to join a BBQ in Mineral Wells with a bunch of other bikers at their biker club. They call themselves the “Last Ones” I think since most of them are older then us. We call ourselves the “Ole Boars” as most of us are over 40 and I am 51. Anyway it turns out the BBQ is at 5PM not 3PM like I thought and the one thing we did notice was many wild Boars dead on the side of Hwy 4 and 16. We thought better then to ride at night after a BBQ, drinking a few beers, and being tired from our 140 mile ride we already put in. So we called Kelly and told him we would not be joining the BBQ and headed East back towards Weatherford. We started going into down town Weatherford as it is a quaint little town with a bunch of stuff to see and do but the traffic was horrible. Man it really stunk so then we saw Hwy 51 and thought that would get us out of the down town traffic and were we wrong. We got hung up at a couple of intersections right near hwy 20 which was killer getting through. The only good thing about it was that we popped right out at exit 408 on Hwy 20 which is where we were staying.

Philip told us of a turn called dead mans turn that others told him about. We did hit some nice curves but I was left looking for this sharp curve with no warning. He also mentioned some steep hills that we could expect; I can tell he has never seen a real mountain or even a decent hill. I expect I will get a bunch of crap for this paragraph if and when he reads this.

Once back at the hotel we decide to shower and go to Chilies for dinner. Philip decides he as a short cut to get there that almost gets us killed because of the traffic. He darts across the intersection and Paul and I decide to turn right and see if there is a back road in to Chilies. Paul did find one that worked out good. Meanwhile Philip is at Chilies waiting for us and declares we just need to get our noses out there and go for it. My 51 years of age does not agree with such ideas on a motorcycle, car yes, motorcycle no.

We get back to the Hotel and sure enough the hot tub still does not work but to the touch it felt a little warmer then the surrounding air so Paul and I suit up to go into it. Philip tells us we will find it too cold once in swim trunks but we decide to venture onward. Well Philip was right; I stuck my feet in the water and said to dang cold. So back to the room I went and took a nice hot shower.

Sunday:

Once again I am up first and this time they really take their time getting up. So by 830 or so I decide to turn on the TV to see if I can muster them up. It worked and once again Paul cleaned the hotel out of breakfast food. We decided to take 730 north to Boyd which is on the west side of Eagle Mountain Lake. Once again the word mountain is used in the state of Texas, not sure if the founder of the lake ever saw a real mountain. Anyway it was a very nice ride to Boyd and then on 114 east towards home. The trip was about 85 miles back home but it went faster then the 55 miles it took me to get to Weatherford. On way back we stopped at Texas Motor Speedway (TMS) to have a couple of beers that we brought with us and watch what ever was going on. There was not much really going on so we parked next to a shower facility and just talked about our trip and the next one we have yet to plan, now that is an oxymoron with us. When we started to leave TMS Paul’s bike did not want to start. He has built it to go fast and that we did not really do so we think it got some carbon build up. Once we got on the fast part of 114 and 121 he stepped on it and it started running better.

We did make it to town and we did stop for our end of trip beer at Dukes Road house. This is our second road trip staying in the same hotel room and riding together for a weekend with no arguments or problems, a lot of jokes and such but we had a good time so I guess we are very compatible bikers and friends which is hard to find. Kelly for example is a good friend but he likes to ride long, fast, and hard which would not suit us very well. It really is hard to find folks that you can ride with comfortably and get along with in such tight quarters for very long.


A shot at Possum Kingdom Dam from the old bridge.


Philip and Paul near the bridge where someone was living. In Pauls hand is a Gord we found growing up the bridge concrete support.


Kicking back at the hotel Gazebo.


Another Picture I wanted to remember


Another picture I wanted to keep.


This is a picture of Philip and Paul while we rested at TMS for a cold beer and a rest.


At Duke's Road House, this is our traditional stop after a weekend run. This is Paul and I left to right.


Paul and Philip at Dukes

Ahhhhh, can anyone tell me what's in this picture that I absolutely would kill for at the this time????:humm:





Hi Patrick, thanks for the ride reports

Shorts wrote:Ahhhhh, can anyone tell me what's in this picture that I absolutely would kill for at the this time????:humm:

A pink trailer?

It's October and you have blue sky and wear t shirts.
When does the weather turn cack out there?

Enjoying the writings.

Ade

This week it will be down to the lower 70's upper 60's, we can have zero degree one day and 80 the next. Looks like we will have a great weekend for riding (but with coats) this coming weekend. I might try to take Monday off and take a 2 day ride as I have a retirement party to go to on Saturday night. But it is for a good friend so it too will be fun. Would rather still be riding however.

Thanks for the comments.

Pat

bluecamel wrote:

Shorts wrote:Ahhhhh, can anyone tell me what's in this picture that I absolutely would kill for at the this time????:humm:

A pink trailer?

No.


Whataburger.

Patrick, eat one for me. I miss them.

A little Ride To Lake Grapevine – October 19th 2007

I had a big outage planned at work for Saturday night which meant I could not go on any over night trips that weekend and the temps were perfect. The forecast was in the mid 80’s with high winds but no rain. So as Friday Morning progressed I got more and more cabin fever and since I work from home I sent a message to my boss that I was going to go on an afternoon ride. This ride comes with no pictures which I highly regret that I did not bring the camera. I also asked my wife if she wanted to go and she was all for it. Now she has a bad back so we can only ride for about 20 miles then she needs to walk around so we just stayed in the local area. The main reason I write about this trip is there was one very funny incident (I hope my writing skills does it justice) and one beautiful area we found on Lake Grapevine that we have not visited before. I thought we found them all but this one was new to us.

We started off by going to a local Tex-Mex place with an out door patio. The weather was great, the beer was cold, and the food was fair enough to go there again. I cannot remember the name of the place but it is next to Duke’s Road House in Bedford TX. You will here a lot about Duke’s as time goes on as it is an interesting place that I will write up about separately when I get pictures. I like it better they Willhoite’s in Grapevine which I bet many of you have heard about. I like Willhoite’s however and I will write about it with pictures one of these days. If you ever get to the DFW area send me a note and I can meet up with you and take you to some of these places, work permitting.

After lunch we headed towards Grapevine about a 15 mile ride the fast way but we took some back roads and got there about an hour later. We really took the long way since it was such a nice day. Before heading to the lake we decided to stop at, you guessed it, Willhoit’s and had a cold beer, but only one and according to my spread sheet on consumption I was now free from the beer I had at lunch so I could have one now. I want to make it clear that though you will see me write about having a beer I am extremely careful to ensure my blood level stays below a .02 percent while actually riding. And being an old Irish Man, that is nothing. Our motto is, we like to drink, we like to ride, we will do either but we won’t do both.

Anyway we head over Lake Grapevine Dam and then into this little park on the north side of the lake. We decide to hand a right at a fork in the road and we found little like rest areas with a cement picnic table with a metal covering over looking the lake by some about 10-15 feet cliffs (really should say drop offs) that led to the water. It was so quiet out there and absolutely gorgeous. We will go back to get pictures. Anyway now is when the fun stuff happens. As we are trying to skip rocks on the water this guy on a mountain peddle bike comes along and is so busy looking at us (or I should say most likely my wife) that he gets within about 15 feet of us and hit a little sharp rock ledge and falls. We offer to help and he was quite embarrassed as he should be and said he was ok and should have been watching where he was going. I agreed with him with a grin as he was after all checking out my wife (at least I hope so if you know what I mean). He then proceeds to his truck to change out of his riding cloths. We move up to the picnic table and are just over looking the water when I turn around and see this same guy put a skirt on. My wife sees my face and turns to look at him and then we both bust a gut laughing. Now keep in mind how quiet I said it was out there (so quiet you could hear yourself breath) and he no doubt heard us laughing. I was laughing but getting a little nervous at the same time as on his back was this big tattoo of a cross. Though I do not have tattoo’s and I have nothing against them or those who where them, but this one was a bit funny with him wearing a skirt, falling off his bike earlier and now the cross. Well after trying with all we can muster to stop laughing he then changes the cloths under the skirt and then takes the skirt off. So the joke was on us and after thinking about it, if there are no facilities around and you need to change down to the commando level, that is a great idea. Not sure if I would do that in just any place since it sure threw us for a loop.

Anyway we decide to head on out since embarrassing now ourselves and hit the road. We decide to stop at Joe’s crab shack for our end of day road beer and then head home. It was a very nice day and we really enjoyed the trip.

A short run to Joe Pool Lake – October 20th 2007

Since I had to cover a large system outage tonight we could not go far so, Philip and friend of ours, my wife, and I wanted to go for an early day ride. The wind was really blowing but the weather was fantastic in the mid 80’s as a project high and it was cool in the morning.

We head out taking the freeways, we really prefer the back roads but heading south from our home, most of the back roads are a lot of lights and suburb type of traffic. We had limited time and there is a back way that is fairly decent but with the limited time he decided to scoot down hwy 360, other wise known as Talladega Motor Speedway as you are always waiting for the big one which happens fairly often. But it was a Saturday morning so we thought most of the folks would behave themselves which they really did. I was very apprehensive about riding with my wife on the back down that Hwy as I have been cut off, and nearly run off the road more then once. So the plan was if the crazies where out I would flash my lights at Philip and we would just go back roads.

The wind really starts to pick up but so far so good as we get to the marina. We have brunch and a beer and watch the kids feed the ducks and carp for awhile and then decide to head over the bridge going south and follow around the lake to the south to then later head on home.


Philip and my wife Val on the bridge to the Marina


Val and I


Philip and I

The wind on the bridge was down right nasty, my first encounter with winds that were that strong. It was like hanging on for dear life. I had to lean the bike slightly to the left at some points just to keep it straight. It kept up like that all day until we finally started our trek back north.

Val’s back was starting to get soar so we talked with Philip at a stop light and he suggested we go to a Harley Dealership on Hwy 20 so we did. Man those Harley’s are beautiful bikes but man, I would have to give up my first born to own one. Way to high priced for my budget. They had free beer and pop corn and so we had some nice chats with some of the folks there. One sales man came up and asked if he could help and I said, I am just looking and dreaming, and he said that is what he was there for to make dreams come true. I assume they get my response often as when a second sales person came over I responded with the same comment and he responded with the same comment. Yes I bet they could make dreams come true after you run a second mortgage on your house and throw in the first born. 

After drooling for awhile we decided to hit the road north. With the wind finally at our back the ride was easy. We did take a small detour off of the hwy and hit a little place called the upper deck. Now to think about it, I should have taken pictures there. I promise I will get better at taking pictures and better ones at that. I have learned a lot form this web site on shooting pictures. I hope to make them more interesting for you all as I learn the ways. We then headed home and had a great several hours of riding and relaxing. I wish I would have got back in the saddle much sooner then this year.