Destination Leakey, Texas, 311 miles approximately 6.5 hours

Kemper's Birthday Ride, the Three Sisters.

After much back and forth about what we'd do this weekend we came up with riding to Leakey Texas and ride the infamous Three Sisters which consist of RR335, RR336 and RR337.

We reserved a Cabin at D'Rose Inn, a place only for bikers or bicyclist. You must be riding or hauling to stay here. Well, as luck would have it as soon as we hung up the phone with Deb we turned on the news to find a possible hurricane (Don) in the gulf to hit southern Texas Friday morning…of course it is! The cone of uncertainty and mostly guesswork leads directly in the pattern we were expecting ride. We worried for a bit, but we needed to get away so bad, we had to risk it.

Kemper and I have been pretty stressed for the last few months, with the bike rebuild and paint, buying a new house, kids moving in and kids moving out, my mother having back surgery in Arizona and heavily medicated, to the cat not adjusting to the new house well and having major intestinal issues…all over the new house…to my oldest (Trey) and his job issues and last but not least the night before we leave, we get a call from him that he's wrecked his truck…man, lets run away and tell no one where we went. So the Hurricane threat is still there, just now, moving a little more south, but nothing will keep us down.
We gotta Ride
7 am on Friday morning we strike out. The sun is out and the air is crisp, we are happy and excited to be on our way.
By 9:30 am we arrive in La Grange…making really go time so far.

By 1:30 we stop one more time to fuel up and get some water before entering the first leg of the Sisters RR337 going into Leakey. While we were sitting there just resting a minute, 5 bikes pull in for fuel. Now this is a very small station, 6 motorcycles was almost too much for this country station with only 2 pumps. As the first guy finishes with the pump he moves his bike next to us to clear the way for the rest. Of course he and Kemper start to talk, and introduce themselves. Over the next few minute will change the course of this trip and our lives forever. Kemper and Vernon exchange phone numbers and Vernon explains that he and his group have a house down on the river if we'd like to come over later that evening and hang out with them. We were gracious of course, but thought…yeah, probably not…Vernon also offered to lead the way down the first stretch going into Leakey…asking Kemper…you leading or following? Kemper says I'll follow, and off we went. The roads were winding and scenic. Our trail boss and his buddies we steady as she goes…much too slow for Kemper's liking…at one point around a 10mph curve, Kemper turns to me and says they are gonna walk their bikes around this one…once it registered with me what he said..it was really funny. As we came to the intersection of 337 and 83, Mike held back and asked us to follow them on to the Bike Stop for a beer, we followed. We sat and visited with them, enjoyed a beer and some lunch. As they got ready to leave, Vernon asked us again, to come out to his place, bring something to throw on the grill and sit in the Frio River to cool off. We said thank you and that we might.

We checked into our cabin it was really neat and quaint. Window unit AC, coffee maker, mini-fridge and no TV, all that we need. We unpack our luggage and go to the Mercantile for some beer, as we are leaving the Mercantile Mike and Dano pull up in the Jeep, again they say come on out we're getting stuff to cook and some "hooch"…we're gonna sit in the Frio and cool off. We say...we'll see….as the evening goes on Kemper and I talk about how nice they seemed and how much we enjoyed visiting with them at the Bike Stop, so we decided to go check out their place…they invited us…we're not intruding, right?…We shower off and freshen up a bit, ran back to the mercantile for some chicken to put on the grill and a cake from the local bake sale table and off we went.

When we got out there no one was home…the house was dark, but in the distance we could hear a good time going on…so we walked toward the river in the direction of the laughter until we found them, as they saw us walking down the pathway they seemed genuinely happy to see us, asking how we knew where they were…haha, really?
That night was a great time hanging with them, good food, good company. We thanked them for their hospitality and fine cooking; again they invited us to join them on their ride Saturday morning. We agreed we'd talk after breakfast and decide then.
Saturday Morning Rain

When we woke up on Saturday morning it was misting a very gentle mist, hardly visible in the air but you could feel it on your skin…the bike and ground were pretty wet and the roads definitely too wet to ride. Kemper moves the bike to the pavilion and dries her down and we wait. We sat under the pavilion wiping the bugs off the bike, drinking our coffee and playing with the little cabin cat that seemed to adopt us pretty quickly. In fact, from then on he stayed on the picnic table in front of our cabin, even through the night he slept there, greeting us the next morning as if saying "I've been waiting for you".
When it seemed the rain wasn't going to let up anytime soon we decided we'd get dressed and walk to the café for some breakfast. I was dressed and ready before Kemper so I went back outside to sit with my furry friend. As I sat there petting and talking to the kitty finishing my coffee, to my left, walking up is a very large bearded man, (no, not Santa) a large SCARY bearded man walked up…wearing only a Speedo and tennis shoes. He has long hair pulled into a pony tail down his back and a long beard pulled into two long pony tails underneath his chin. His body was decorated with lots of tattoos and scars, one tattoo under his belly button, sitting just above a scar that I'd later find out was from having is colon removed, said "SIZE matters". All the while this was going on I'm thinking to myself Kemper has to come out here, if this guy walks away, he will never believe what I've seen. To my relief, Kemper does finally come out and take over the tantalizing conversation that I had been having with my new friend Dave.
Kemper shares information with Dave that we are going to walk over to the Café for a bite to eat in hopes the weather will clear enough to ride soon.
We went to Leakey Feed Lot for breakfast; we ordered omelets and diet coke…just before our food arrives…you guessed it, in walks Dave and joins us for breakfast, a least he has on long pants and a shirt, thank you for the shirt Dave. He and Kemper engage in more deep conversations about himself and his past… while all I can think about is the fact that the two pony tails under his chin dance around when he talks, in a creepy kinda way. But really, Dave seemed to be a nice guy and according to him, very respected in his home town in Montana.
Let's Ride
Vernon calls and tells Kemper they are ready to ride, still concerned by the wet roads, Kemper believes that we'll take it easy following them and it'll be fine. We meet up them and take off for the 110 miles of the" Three Twisted Sisters".

Turns out that Vernon was the best trail boss and tour guide anyone could ask for, knowing the road, he knew when to slow down for us to see and appreciate all the beauty the area offers…we saw many varieties of deer in the wild as well as exotics on gated Ranches, cows and not to mention Wallabies (Kangaroos) and Giraffes.

At the end of the trail is a Bar and Grill called the Bent Rim Grill and a gift shop for you to purchase your "I did the Three Sisters" shirt, and we did. I also bought a bandana with a map of the ride printed on it and asked all my new friends to sign it for my souvenir for the great day.

I forgot to mention…as we all pull in to the Bike Stop…guess who greats us…??? DAVE…again no shirt, but at least he has on long pants, we share our experience of the ride and he takes off to see for himself.
Frio River, Steak and Keystone Light Beer
Just like last night, Kemper and I went to sit in the Frio River and eat steak that Vernon grilled for us, we sat and listened to music, stories and laughed. It's getting dark and the roads aren't safe at night due to the wildlife lurking on the road sides, so Kemper and I need to get going. Since everyone was going home tomorrow, we hugged and talked about hooking up again some time. We were sad to leave our new friends; they were truly nice people, GOOD people. We always meet interesting, nice people out on the road, but this time was different, these are exceptional people, these are people you'd like to be like and you wish more people were like…these were the "Keystone Light Riders" out of the Waco Texas area; they will always have a place in our hearts.

In the order of our trail ride:

Vernon - Waco TX - "Trail Boss" retired from commercial construction,
but dragged back in…
runs an Outreach organization, providing horseback trail ride
opportunities for children.
Quiet/Serious guy, but sometime, only sometimes,
you can see a hint that he's laughing inside.



Randy - Waco TX - "Retired" from CAT. Lives next door to Vernon,
and watches his horses.
Silly man, LOUD bike and nasty stories about
porn text he gets from his buddies.

 

Scott Beaty - Hewitt TX - "Ex Marine", crazy out going,

loves his family and apparently farts a lot.

 

Linda Beaty - Hewitt TX - "Breast Cancer Survivor",
I feel like that is only the tip
of the iceberg of what makes her amazing.



Mike - Waco TX - Cool in his skin - Drives sick children to the
Shiners' Hospital in Houston.

Dano - Compton Crawford TX - Likes Pie - nah, he's more than that,
he is the life of the party,
tells funny stories, drinks Keystone Light
and rides a trike.

Then Kemper and I bring up the rear,

we are better people for knowing them.

Just one more Beer
As we get back into town we stop at the Hog Pen for one more beer before going in for the night, we take a seat at an outside table with four others that welcome us like long time friend. Two are the running the place, and a younger couple who had just ridden in from Clear Lake on a "Super Scooter" (?) they tell us about their trip leaving late Friday evening and sleeping on a picnic table in a public rest area along the way. We bikers are crazy, between the heat, rain and sometime desperate sleeping conditions; we'll do anything to get our ride on.

Gotta Head Home
Sunday morning we slept in til about 8. Today we gotta head home, the day is already getting pretty warm…as I step out of the cabin to drink my coffee and check on my furry friend that waited for me on the picnic table all night. I hear a large voice from the nearby cabin yelling, "Get up", I yell back "Good morning Dave". He walks over for a chat, again I appreciated the long pants…but, still no shirt.

After fueling up and having breakfast one more time at the Feed Lot. We strike out making really good time getting to New Braunsfels, going on into Gruene to have some ice cream for lunch, walking around cooling down and resting a bit before the second half of our journey home. While in Gruene, walking along the sidewalk, there's a guy on the phone, as we pass he says "Kemper?" but he's on the phone, we keep walking and then say did he just say Kemper? Do we know him? Kemper walks back and they start chatting it and laughing, I walk back to see who this is that might know him in Gruene. Turns out this is our next door neighbor's (Todd) brother whom we have never met…apparently Todd had told him about the bike and he recognized it. He was on the phone asking Todd what our names were…and Todd says "You mean Yin and Yang?"

Margarita Time for Sure
We made it back to 290 and 1488, stopped and rested a minute, visited with a couple of Banditos on their way to Sturgis. We made it back to our street at about 7pm stopped at El Chapparo for food and Margarita's, Mom and Boo met us there and sat as we talked non-stop about what fun we had on our trip to Leakey Tx.

Where to begin…it's been a long time since I've been on here, so I've got lots to tell to bring you up to speed.

The Bike Rebuild

In November of 2010, Kemper wants a new bike…after much talking and looking, talking and showing me bikes to me online, and talking about new motorcycle, kinds of motorcycles, colors, why this one is better than that one, talking, reading to me about them, showing me, looking at and TALKING about, every bike in the greater Houston Metro. He decides to tear his down and rebuild it…ME: "Will you do that in Garage?" HIM: "No I'll do it at the shop during the slow months, I'll have space, time and tools to get it done by spring, it’ll be fun." ME: "Whatever you want to do, It does sound fun"

Who knew how long it would take him and how many sets of bags, fairings, windshields, gauges, etc. he'd wanna show me and talk to me about that he has found, on line, in magazine, beside the road…driving down the road, on TV…OMG…….ME: Just buy something." And so he did…deliveries everyday for several days, big boxes…little boxes…brown boxes, white boxes…explaining to me every piece he bought and why… By now the warehouse has filled up with units for Home Depot, calls and orders were flying. Bike rebuild was on hold…yet the bike is like a million colors and in no way ready to ride….BUT, he has to get it out of the shop, so, he recruits me to help him hurry to finish it enough to get it to our garage at home. I'm just saying…but I am not a fan of holding the big monster while he puts it on the lift and raises it off the ground. After 2 days, and several meals eaten in his warehouse he has it back together enough to drive it home. We load my car with the many, many boxes of parts and pieces of several bikes and lots and lots of tools. He rides the bike of many colors and iffy gauges to the house and put it in the garage, as I follow, holding my breather the thing stays together long enough to get it home.

Once in the now full garage and a bit of tweaking here and there it time to talk about paint…and TALK we did…about color, about design, about theme….OH DEAR LORD STOP THE BLEEDING…I did however, through all of this find out that I am quite the motorcycle paint/design artist provided a box of map colors and a jumbo bottle of wine. The laughing continues…Thank God Kemper found Ken Hill of Magnolia to take over the efforts of designing the look and painting the bike. Ken came out one afternoon in February, looked at the bike, we gave him some ideas of what we wanted…Kemper wouldn't let him see my handy work to give the guy some real idea what we were talking about and the quality we expect. The deal was done, we weren't real sure he knew what we wanted but he's the artist; he's really quiet not a lot of conversation…hope he doesn't drink wine. So we tear the bike down …AGAIN…and get everything ready to deliver to Ken on February 27.

The New House
Oh…I haven't mentioned that during all of this we decide to buy a house…DR Horton came through the neighborhood bought all the empty lots and started building…so on April 19th we moved about 8 doors down from the property we were leasing. As soon as we closed, we went and bought our extra furniture and a fridge, by 2 pm we've picked up the key to our new home. We first go to the old house load both cars with everything we can and take it to the NEW house, woohoo. Even though we had movers coming the next day we were excited and wanted to continue to move as much as we could. By about 11pm we were getting pretty tired but couldn't leave it alone…so we made one more trip back to the old house, on this trip we brought down, our mattresses, all the bedding, the dog, her kennel, fresh clothes, bath towels, washcloths, bath soap, toiletries and the coffee maker. Most of you know that Kemper and I are marathon movers…we can't deal with clutter and everything has its place.


The ACTUAL move
Please keep in mind we have the skeletal remains of the bike in the old garage…Kemper wouldn't let the movers handle it. As my mother and I are unpacking and putting things away in the new house the movers and Kemper are loading up at the old house, after a few hours I hadn't even seen Kemper which is unusual…in just a bit he comes through the door, sweaty, out of breath and looking as if he may die. ME: "What have you been doing?" HIM: "Can you come help me push the bike up the driveway? ME: "OMG!!!! I told not to push that thing down here by yourself!" Well he did…and now the ugly beast and the hundreds of boxes of motorcycle CRAP are strewn about the NEW three car garage.

Nearly May
Still no completed paint parts are ready…let's see…it's nearly May, best riding weather of the year. We are so ready to ride at one point Kemper runs into the house and said he figured out a solution...huh? ME: What, How? HIM: Come see!! I walk into the garage to find that he has strapped a lawn chair and a gas can on the bike...ME: Okay, where do I sit?  HIM: I'll work on it.

My patience have run out...ME: Call Him! HIM: I'll send him a text… ME: did he answer you? HIM: Yeah he said he have the faring by Friday. ME: Cool, I'm excited.

FRIDAY…ME: hey did you talk to your boy? HIM: no, I'll send him a text. ME: did he answer you back? HIM: Said it's gonna be Tuesday, he needs more clear coat. ME: Oh.  

TUESDAY…ME: Call him. HIM: I'll send him a text…Anyway you get it…several Fridays and Tuesdays more went on with the same conversations…until one Thursday Ken Hill arrives in our driveway with the faring…still tacky to the touch but crazy cool! After about 3 more weeks the parts started coming in piece by piece the bike was coming together. Our maiden voyage was May 27th, 90 days to the day on the paint.

Okay, so there ya go, you're up to date so far…

First Anniversary - Road Trip

Destination Corpus Christi 251 miles approximately 4.5 hours

Started our trip at 7 am on August 14, 2010...first stop...Newman's Bakery in Bellville Texas for a bite to eat. Newman's is always a great place for breakfast, they have anything you could ask for and lots of it, the company there is always friendly and ready to visit with total strangers...a great way to start the day for a long hard ride.

Once done with our breakfast we head out, the day is really starting to warm up. We only have 5 hours and about 180 miles more to go.

I'd love to tell about all the really cool things we see on a ride like this, but there is no way to explain the sights and smells and the way the air feels hitting your skin. The farm animals, feeding their babies...and in some cases making babies...the junk left along the roadways that's been yanked from the back of a pickup truck by the wind or simply discarded. Dodging the suicide birds and bugs. The children and old people that wave or give you the thumbs up as you pass them by, I sometime wonder what that means, do the children just watch us in amazement like we are something of a freak show? Do the old people remember when or wish they'd been more carefree in their life? It's truly refreshing for the mind and body.

Reading a road map going 70 miles an hour is pretty impossible, however, I do my best based on the instructions from the night before, Kemper gives me a list of rode numbers will take and could take to get there...a lot of them...I'm never really sure which plan his is going on from one turn to the next and I do get caught up in just riding, thinking and resting...so needless to say maybe next trip I'll write them down and keep the list handy...I missed a few numbers...so after a detour through Rosenberg, which is an interesting little town, we hit 59 for a few (okay a hundred) miles...the clouds are our friend today making for a warm but for the most part pleasant ride. Along this stretch we come up behind two cars in tow, the vehicle hauling the appeared to be tow worthy as well, the car in tow was packed to the top with junk, or treasure...not sure, anyway they were headed to the border with the prizes.

We stop plenty for fuel and just to stretch our legs and drink water, Bucees' of course, they have clean rest rooms. I think I freaked out an old lady there, pretty sure she wasn't exactly comfortable sharing a mirror to apply lipstick with a biker chick...heehee...lighten up or I'll shank you with my nail file.

There is a really long stretches of nothing but near desert along Hwy 77, miles and miles of it, we stop at a little junky station to apply more sunblock and drink some water, this was kinda the only place around, a couple there just married meeting up with some of the wedding party to hand off wedding gifts and other items, appearing to be on their way to the Honeymoon destination...plenty of Mexican workers there getting soft drinks and taking a smoke break, they obviously were not allowed to smoke in the boss's monster truck.

After a rest we are back on the road...a few miles down the road Kemper is kinda acting strange...slowly passing and looking at a gas station on the other side of the freeway...I'm not sure what he's doing or thinking, but I trust him so off we continue...this road is long bare and nothing...its dirty, hot and LONG...it's obvious we are near the border, the few cars that pass us are junky and smoky. Up ahead we see once again the cars in tow...we both laugh as we pass them again.

Now Kemper is acting weird again, looking down at his gauges and back at the road in front of him, I'm concerned, are we have bike issues? I look over his should to discover we are out of gas, I mean out of gas, in the red...I guess he missed the sign that says next gas 200 miles...I don't say a word to him, I can tell he is growing concerned as well, all I can really think of is that he is gonna make me stay with this stupid bike while he walks looking for gas or hitches a ride with some creepy guy and leaves me beside this desert road. I watch scary movies...this is how it starts!!

As I am sure this is my certain destiny, there is a sign for food and gas...left exit...we take, whew, we're gonna make...or are we? More long nothing road, now only 2 lanes...we go on for what seems like miles...over the hill is civilization, well of some unknown time. A Stripes convenience store, thank God!!!

We pull in to the first fuel pump, I jump off to get water and cool off a minute. While I was inside Kemper met a friend...of course, Kemper met a friend...I can't leave him alone for a minute. Well, after being formally introduced to the new friend that is looking for a ride to the next little town, because the girl he'd just met last night had to leave him at her house because her brother had a stroke and she had to go see about him, then as he walked to the the Stripes store he was chased and attacked buy a dog ripping his backpack, fell down and tore his jeans his cell phone didn't get a signal so he couldn't contact his buddies to tell them where he was and to come get him. Man, the way I see it if this guy didn't have BAD luck, he'd have NO luck at all.

Not much farther to Corpus we blast off again, we are still having a great time, enjoying the ride and each other's company...however, I must say had Kemper left me standing beside the road with that stupid bike while he went for gas, we might have to reevaluate our relationship, heehee.

Riding through the next little town I see an amazing sight, I tap Kemper on the shoulder and tell him to look...Kemper rarly gets to see much of the beautiful things on these rides, he's pretty concentrated on the road and the traffic around us, I appreciate that, but sometimes I just can't let him miss it. Anyway, he looks around and says "yeah"...I say, "we have to stop, I wanna take a picture!!" He says, "Of what?" I say "look!!!", he says..."Oh!! Wow!!!" fields and fields of the Wind power wind mills...they a beautiful, enormous all turning in harmony with the wind, really something to see.

Once into Corpus, we parked the bike and walked to the Surf Club, good food, interesting place and interesting people here we met and hung out with…Michael and Karen Chrane, she was an artist and he a retired Professor.

After an unknown number of Vodka tonics…we luckily found our way back to the hotel…the next day we rode the area and walked the piers watching the shrimpers, bring and sell their pay. I mostly enjoyed watching the pelicans gobble up what the fishermen would toss aside as they went through the shrimp culling the bad ones.

The ride home…HOT….REALLY hot…we traveled back around Port Aransas and rode the ferry, while we were waiting in line to get on I snapped this pic, you think these guys were just ready to go home? National Lampoon vacation maybe...?

Oh, and a side note: if you ever want to ride the ferry in Port Aransas and you are on the bike...Don't follow the cars, bikes have their own line, and you get on first...wish we'd have known.

Lots more stops coming home than going, lots more sunblock for sure.

One interesting thing was our dinner dining experience. We stopped in Wharton to eat and rest fur a spell…not a lot a choices in Wharton but the one place long side this lonesome trail was Jr's Texas Best Smoke House, seemed like that would work just fine for two tired trail riders on a Ironhorse. We walk in and are greeted by a young girl with a thick South Texas accent and a gingham apron…we are OBVIOUSLY out of place…thinkin they didn't much like our kind in these parts, with all eyes on us we sit down order our ice tea, as the little filly brings our tea she starts in about the days specials, as she concludes her spiel, she invites us to help ourselves at the "Salad Wagon" Kemper and I couldn't contain ourselves any longer and laughed out loud…then quickly bellied up to that wagon…Oh I have to say…it really was a wagon…full size wagon filled with all the salad fixens you could want.

All in all, it was a great trip...always fun when Kemper and I are together...one thing for sure never a dull moment!