|
Wife is out of town..you know what that means?
Dateline: Sunday Dallas, Texas
Gear up baby. Yep, Sunday was all mine, so after sleeping in until 9:00, I shower and gear up for a day of riding. I have 5443 miles on the Ducati and it has a 6000 mile service requirement. I have a 1200 mile trip planned later this month so I need to get the miles up to the service before leaving on the upcoming trip.
"Where do I go?" I ask myself. I think I left my camera out at Holly Lake Ranch (24 miles north of Tyler (100 east of Dallas) so lets go there first then I can take some pictures of the day.
Slab over to Rockwall (east edge of Dallas), then 276 and 515 etc to stay on winding back roads to Holly lake. Very little traffic and great roads. Once at the lake I'm really disappointed to not find the camera. Now I'm really worried as to its fate. One problem with these little (Casio 770) digital cameras, they are too small.
Okay, shake it off and lets continue to have fun. The back roads are so much fun lets keep heading east. So I zig and zag all kinds of FM roads with the only requirement being east mainly, a little north okay. I end up just south of Pittsburg, Texas when I see a sign for Lake of the Pines. I haven't been there in 30 years so twist the throttle and here we go.
I have a big pucker moment on one curve during this leg of my trip. This particular road had some debris on it. Mainly red dirt and some gravel pushed out of the car tire lanes. I'm going into a right hand curve marked 35 mph and I'm doing my normal 30 over through these turns. This one has a noticable amount of gravel in the center of my lane so I decide to go on the high side of the gravel rather than the inside lane (figured any drift would take me away from the gravel on the high side). You guessed it, after re-focusing on the curve rather than the gravel, there is a car right at the apex of the turn heading the other way. I'm already up to the double yellow paint so I start pressing down on the right bar and all of these thoughts rush through my brain "GRAVEL, LOW SIDE, SLIDE UNDER THE CAR, DEATH, YOURE AN IDIOT!"
I get a shot of 1 gallon of adrenaline and I ride the 2 foot wide clean lane through the turn. Safe. Whew! With heart pounding I think, what a fool, was that necessary? So I back off the rest of the day with my 30 over style.
Anyway, I see the lake and continue east thinking, maybe Louisiana is in my reach. Up pops the road sign saying Henderson, Tx south. I've never seen Henderson, and I've heard what a great place so lets go.
A pretty town, but much smaller than I expected. I haven't seen Marshall so south a little more and I stop for a late Subway sandwich lunch. While eating my lunch I watch 3 cops tag team on everyone speeding through town. So I promptly finish up and catch a backroad back west to Longview, Tx.
Stop by to see my old high school friend only to be told he is in Louisiana gambling. Rats. I Gas up and the sun is starting to decline in the west so I decide to slab Highway 80 straight west to Dallas. I hate riding right into the fireball for 2 hours. Pull into the garage at 7:00 pm. Speedo says 5850.
I'm am quickly deciding that East Texas is the best option for riding out of Dallas. Once you clear the city on the east side, you can start the winding hilly backroads. Little traffic, and good roads. Just be prepared for debris from cars entering the highways from dirt farm roads. Making it home is what really counts.
Now I need to ride another 150 before the week is out.
Sorry, no pictures, no CAMERA!
|
Linear Mode
