May 9, 2005

Pecos, Sanderson, Ft. Stockton

A wonderful  day with great riding and exhilarating progress!

Don joined us at my home, Where Jake spent the night, and we launched about 0730. We were a rag tag band of troops off in search of adventure.  But, Don had the king's seat in my pick-up truck following Jake on his Intruder and me on my VStar.  We began in misty wetness...not enough to be a problem and the weatherman promised better as we went.  He was not wrong this time.

Using back roads I am familiar with, we went to Hondo, Texas, to join up with US 90.  While there we stopped for breakfast at the Flightline Cafe. It was a wonderful break at the start of a 359 mile ride.  Their short stack is a treat.

We could see the cloud cover breaking up as well as we headed west on US 90 with a target of Sanderson, Texas, then Ft. Stockton. So we put the hammer down, so to speak, with Don, in his air conditioned comfort, behind us, laughing and letting me know from time to time over our Chatterbox communication system how much fun he was having.

Towns along US 90 in southern Texas are generally small with extreme local flavor.  We passed through Uvalde, the largest of towns we were to see until Del Rio, driving in the midst of an expanse of near west texas geography.  It is amazing how massive that expanse is until you ride through it. And when you get west of Del Rio, it gets even larger.  It is truly awesome.  Along the way we saw road runners, lizards, hawks, buzzards, and many other forms of wildlife.

Just west of Del Rio is a man made lake called Amistad.  It straddles the Mexican-USA border and covers significant territory. There is a mile long bridge that crosses a part of it and the TDOT (highway guys) were working on it.  So we crossed in single file and took a few pix when across. Not long after, we approached the Pecos River and the Judge Roy Bean territory.  Looking over the 273 foot high narrow bridge for a while we then scooted across not looking to left or right for fear of acrophobia, and headed on a curvy road toward Sanderson.

Much of the time we sympathized with Jake as he has a small gas tank (that's small gas tanki) and he wondered about the range he could handle. We found on the high speed roads today that he can go 125 miles before he hits reserve.  He was surprised and proud.  A record. West of Del Rio we ran into a section of highway under construction and considerable gravel on the road. An exciting time on two wheels with cages spewing up stones as they sped along in relative safety.

At the Pecos River we took pictures, spoke with some Indians who were playing tom-tom music on their car CD, then drove across the narrow, high bridge toward Langtry and Judge Roy Beans famous Jersey Lilly.  After the expected Chevy Chase Vacation nod or two and a delightful conversation with the receptionist at the visitor's center, we chatted with a Georgia couple who had just visited Big Bend and were en route home.  A good American! couple who love our land and make us proud.

The rest was a run across west texas (who, by the way, has the best roads in the country).  After a short stop in Sanderson for fuel, we headed north  on US 285 to Ft. Stockton.  It was a wonderful high speed ride giving Don a sense of amusement park thrill and Jake and me a sense of youthful abandon.  There were plentiful bugs in this semi-desert geography and we all were smacked many time on the windshields, face shields, and hands time and time again.

We finally arrived in Ft. Stockton, 359.4 miles per GPS and Jake took a long, cold swim and sun bath while we smuggled beers to him at the pool.  Don suggested we 'WOK' to the Chinese restaurant next door, which we did [the Chinese Inn] for a great meal.  We 'WOK-ed' back and so endeth the story.

Here's some pictures (Full Album HERE):