I'm Excited! I finally got time to getting a new battery for the scooter over at Legacy HD. Came home, installed the battery, washed the bike, went out for a test ride, came back in and decided where I was going to take a day ride to. It's a ride that I've done before, but, it's always fun.

http://bit.ly/fnCdOz

See you on the road...

It's the beginning of Spring and I'm ready to ride. Went out to see if she would fire off, but, no luck. I guess the '05 battery finally gave up the ghost. Not bad given the fact that the motorbike hasn't been riden more than 1000 miles in the past two years. How pathetic is that. So, it's off to Legacy to purchase a new battery later this week. I'll be riding this weekend rain or shine...well...maybe not if it's raining when I leave.

Doesn’t time fly? I looked back at this blog and discovered that it’s was Christmas the last time I updated it. It was the ride plan so I thought I would give an update to the ride.

What started out as a couple of guys going on a ride exculpated into 15 or so who “said” they wanted to go too. No problem, more is better when it comes to these types of things. By the time the 28th rolled around it had dwindled to 3 confirmed participants and my son was one of those who rode.

It was a chilly start the morning of the 28th. We met at the local Pilot, which turned out to be a mistake too. If you have ever been to one of these truckstops, there is a lot of traffic and a lot of it, as one might expect, were 18-wheelers. At any rate, we fueled up the scoots, looked over the ride plan and hit the road. The temperature was a brisk 27 degrees, but, the promise of warming was looming on the horizon. We met up with the third rider at McCamey and then took off again. The ride from Odessa to McCamey was un-eventful, but cold and both Nick and I were chilled as we pulled into to meet up with Randy. After a brief stop it was onto Irran for coffee and a brief stop. By this time the temperature had warmed considerably and all of us were comfortable.

We arrived in Del Rio around 2:00 and ate lunch at Chilli’s. It was there we came to the realization that the Uvalde loop was not going to happen. We would be running out of daylight around Eagle Pass on the return to Del Rio and there are too many animals to food with on that road. So, we decided to go and make El Indio instead. By the time we got to Eagle Pass, it was 5:00 and had to discontinue the ride and head back to the hotel. El Indio would have to wait until the next trip.

After a couple of slices of pizza it was off to slumber land. We all got a good nights rest and met for breakfast around 7:00. Noticed that a couple of Goldwingers were also staying at the hotel and a brief chat revealed that they were from north Texas, around Denton, and taking advantage of the warm weather. We ate breakfast, gassed the bikes and headed for Big Bend.

We took 190 out of Del Rio and when we arrived at High Bridge we had to stop to take in the view and get a picture that would commemorate the ride. I think we stayed at pullout for about an hour. We did get some good pictures and some of those are posted here. We also decided that if we went through the park as planned, we would be very late getting home that night. So, we decided to cut it short and head for home. We arrived in Sanderson around 11:00 and got to Fort Stockton about 1:00. There is a great Mexican food restaurant called Bienvenidos that we ate at. The Chili Verde was calling my name and I hoped that it wouldn’t cause me any trouble down the road. Nick and I gassed up and hit the road back to Midland.

I averaged 41 miles per gallon while Nick averaged 46 or 47 on his Beemer. The final total number of miles ridden for me was 792 in the two-day outing and while we did not complete the ride as intended, we had a wonderful time, saw a lot of great country. We all agreed that we would do this ride again in the spring or when the time changed back to daylight savings time.

Dave

Merry Christmas!

I’m attaching the map I was talking about yesterday. By the way, it was generated by using the trip planner on the Harley Davidson website. If you are not familiar with that tool it’s really great and I would highly recommend it.

The total trip will be ~1038 miles around Texas over two days. The trip will take us from Odessa to Del Rio by way of Iraan, Sonora, and Uvalde. Next, it’s over to Big Bend for a quick ride from Panther Junction, up to the basin and then out the western side of the park. We’ll then ride up through Alpine, Fort Stockton, Wink (Roy Orbison Museum) and the back home.

It should be a fun trip and I hope to be able to keep you posted from the road via an audioblog.

This is my first attempt at a blog so if you are watching and reading excuse the mess. I guess I’ll just have to see how it goes. I’m really using this site to help my friends and family keep track when I’m on the road on my Harley. With any luck, it will be a little entertaining as well.

I am planning a trip on December 28th and 29th to south Texas. The weather is supposed to be great and there has been some enthusiasm for this trip including my son. I’m going to post a map of the ride and possible each stage. My goal while on the ride will be to post a couple of audio blogs as well as a picture or two from the road. Hope it all works out.

Here's the ride map. Okay, tried to make a copy of the map and have not had any luck. I'll convert it and post it along with the ride details tomorrow. Until then, Merry Christmas.