Taos, New Mexico to Snyder, Texas
The next morning, I received a call that my mother in Dallas had been diagnosed with bladder cancer and wasn't doing well. Plans changed and I needed to head for Big D to see her. Thankfully I wasn't in far north Montana and was only a couple of days away.
Leaving Taos for Las Vegas, Hwy 518 south was a good road with lots of twisties, great scenery, mountains and rivers with some old adobe buildings. That is until about Cleveland where the land begins to flatten out.
There were a lot of trucks on the highway
It was depressing getting back to the flatlands!
At Las Vegas I caught I-25 to 84 south. It was just flat, hot and boring. At Fort Sumner I filled up and was approached by a funny little man. Turns out he was from Switzerland and in the midst of traveling the circumference of the world. He'd left Switzerland for Moscow, then took the train across Russia, a ferry to Japan, a container ship across the Pacific to Long Beach, CA where he rented a car to cross the U.S. He had been to the Billy the Kid museum and was now heading to Roswell. He was excited to see the BMW and told me in broken English that he had a BMW R1100RT.
Road construction was frequent - sitting in the heat was brutal.
Next came Clovis and finally the Texas border at the little town of Texico.
It was really hot through Lubbock as the sun began to set.
My goal had been Abilene, then as the day waned away, it was Sweetwater, but I finally called it quits in Snyder when it got dark. I grabbed a cheap hotel that smelled of curry and was noisy as hell all night with oil roughnecks rolling in at all hours in rumbling diesel pickups.
The route:
Snyder, Dallas, La Grange, Houston and Home
The ride from Snyder to Dallas was totally uninteresting after all the beauty of the previous weeks.
I lost a couple of hours in the morning waiting for the Pizza Inn to open where I'd eaten the night before. I'd left my riding jacket on the seat in the booth and didn't realize it until about 7 am when packing the bike. I had no idea why I suddenly started forgetting my jacket.
While waiting, I had breakfast in a little cafe and got plenty of looks from the locals. Snyder is a typical west Texas town and a guy with a bug covered jacket and ponytail was a new sight to see.
At 9 am someone had finally shown up at the Pizza Inn, so I rang the back doorbell for a while to no avail. I then banged on the front door for a while and still no response from inside. At the drive-through window on the back I pressed my face up to the glass and saw two girls inside ignoring me. Since they’d been spotted and had to acknowledge me. I shouted through the glass about my jacket. She still acted like I wasn't there, finally wandering to the window with an attitude. Eventually she opened the window and we got it sorted out, handing the jacket through and I was able to get on the road.
Low cloud cover stayed all the way to Dallas, keeping the temps reasonable. Approaching Ft. Worth from Weatherford, the traffic thickened and became a solid high speed river of semis and pickups. I took the I-30 split and did my Matrix motorcycle ride through the insane traffic. This was the first real fear I'd felt on the entire trip!
Dallas arrived with its traffic, malls and ubiquitous Best Buy / Petsmart / Office Depot / Chili's / Old Navy strip malls. After what I'd seen it was depressing as hell.
The route:
Dallas to La Grange, Houston and Kerrville
It was good to spend time with my mother and she seemed to be doing well, considering the diagnosis and the fact they would be removing her bladder. God does miracles and I prayed for one.
While in Dallas, I got to connect with a couple of riders who'd followed along online with my travels, which was nice. After the adventure of Montana, it was hard to face getting back home and into the routine of life again. I'd fallen in love with motorcycle travel and the world it opened and I just didn't want it to end. I decided to detour and see a couple of friends before finally making it home.
As I was leaving Dallas on the freeway in heavy traffic, a pigeon flew up from the roadside at about a 45º angle and came right between my windshield and left mirror, hitting the face shield of my helmet dead square at about 70 mph. The impact was so hard my eyes crossed and I almost blacked out. Thankfully I had my face shield closed or it would have knocked me out cold and I have no doubt I'd have been run over, as the traffic was thick and fast all around me.
The impact had flexed the clear shield in, hitting my nose and upper lip like a fist punch, making my eyes cross. Luckily the plastic hadn't broken and had flexed back out quickly. My upper lip was numb and my eyes watered for quite a while afterwards.
Anyway, I continued south to catch I-35 to Waco and then cut off on Hwy 77 to La Grange, Texas to visit old friends, who'd faithfully followed my travels online. They'd spent many years traveling and had plenty of adventures themselves.
My friends Dan, Helen and Sparky the Wonder Dog
Double trouble…
From La Grange, I headed for Houston by way of Brenham to visit my friend Robert. Robert had followed my travels as well and we'd communicated online but hadn't met or ridden together. It was a good excuse to visit Houston and avoid going home for another day or two.
Following Robert through Houston
Robert's toy box
Robert and I decided to ride around Houston the next day... and so did the rain. We had breakfast at the 11th St Cafe in the Heights, watching the rain pour down on our bikes before heading to Wild West Honda / KTM / BMW in the post rain spray of crowded highways. It was a lousy, disgusting muddy experience, made worse by the fact that I was embedded behind a semi for miles.
At the dealership we fondled as much gear and as many bikes as possible, but the ultimate surprise was the new KTM 950 Super Enduro. It looked to be a perfect motorcycle for Colorado mountain passes, a relatively lightweight dirt bike-inspired monster with a 950 cc engine.
From the dealership home, we got caught in another downpour and got soaked to the nether regions. Our shortcut was under water so we went around, eventually reaching his street which had loose sand washed onto it from a previous storm. Who says you can't have adventure in Houston?
After tossing my soaked clothing and gear into his dryer for a while, I said goodbye and headed out Hwy 290 for Austin in the rush hour traffic, arriving about 7 pm. The rain had stayed in front of me and the highways were wet with water, but I never actually got into the rain. It kept the ride cool and continued with me on 290 all the way through Johnson City, Fredericksburg and then Kerrville.
I rolled into the Shell station at the junction of Hwy 16 and I-10 about 9:15 pm and filled up the GS. My trip odometer turning 6,845 miles.
The adjacent Cracker Barrel was still open and I hadn't eaten since breakfast, so I treated myself to a meal for accomplishing my first real motorcycle adventure.
I was tired from the long day and I'll admit to sadness to be back near home. I'd left with trepidation, unsure of what lay ahead and now weeks later I'd returned to the same spot, a different person than before. It sounds trite to say, but I would never be the same again.
Finishing my glass of ice tea, I headed out in the night for the last 11 miles to my home, riding slowly due to the ever present volume of deer that accompany life in the Hill Country.
The route: