Tour de Dixie - Texas (Part One)

Tour de Dixie – Texas (Part One)

Confused by the title? I have an explanation to offer… Anytime you have more than a dozen items of any sort, there will unavoidably be a thirteenth item. I don’t consider myself to be superstitious or abnormally risk-averse, but I see no reason to take unnecessary chances. So, no ‘Part Thirteen’ in this series, just a minor adjustment in titling…

Texas is not ‘new territory’ for ALI and me to explore… I have no idea how many times we’ve ventured out to the Republic, but it would be a very high number for sure if I were to attempt to quantify them, even more if I included Gold Wing trips too!

It would be far easier to count the negative experiences instead… if there had ever been any. I cannot recall even one time where I didn’t enjoy the ride or leave there not being plumb giddy about the adventure! It is indeed one of my favorite places to roam around…

Many of my rides this season have been group rides… This one was slated to be yet another. Troutdude (Dennis) and MITCHO (Mitch) were planning to accompany me on most of this ride… perhaps even Hard6 (JP/Jerry/uncle Jerry) too. From the outset, however, certain ‘things’ seemed to conspire to complicate, possibly thwart, the whole enterprise…

Weather was a primary contributor to the difficulty in putting something together. Mitch lives in central Illinois, and winter still lurks about up there well into early Spring. Often nice riding that time of year, but things can change quickly, and snow/frozen precip can pop up at any time.

We of the southern persuasion have milder temps, of course, but rain is a frequent, some might say constantly recurring, event… this year it came in rare concentrated volumes and unusual flooding occurred over large areas…

Busy lives also factored into this. All of us have stuff going on in our lives, and we all have responsibilities beyond what goes with a group ride. Still, these were more or less overcome, and a tentative schedule was cobbled together… sort of…

Let me say that I understand how frustrating it can be for others trying to pin yours truly down to specific details for a lengthy ride. In fact, I do understand, precisely because I used to be very detail oriented myself! For a multitude of reasons, though, I have gone in the opposite direction, and nowadays I tend to be too loosey-goosey, vague, and imprecise for many of my riding pals. All three of these guys, however, seemed to be quite OK with this…

The timing of this ride had to be coordinated to somehow fit into four different schedules with somewhat different available amounts of time. Nothing new here, of course, any group ride has this challenge… It would have been far easier to simply have made this ride solo… but if you’ve ever met those other three characters, then you already know why I really wanted to go with them!

The plan that eventually unfolded had me leaving my place on Sunday morning and riding down to Mandeville, LA. Monday morning Troutdude and I were to ride to Lake Charles, LA, to hook up with Hard 6, then the three of us would continue on to Texas. Somewhere in the ‘out beyond’, we’d make a rendezvous with MITCHO, who had decided to leave Illinois and head west as soon as his weather broke. He then would just explore on his own until we could find him…

Dennis had a family matter to attend, so that imposed one ‘book end’ to our trek scheduling, while the Gathering of the Fools provided the other… everything would have to fit within the time slot of about two and a half weeks between those two events … So far, so good…

The weather in Louisiana had been so wet that local flooding had created some problems… and one of those was the cancellation of the event Dennis and his family had planned to attend. Hmmm… Naturally, once I got it in my head to hit the road, my feet got really itchy, so I was ready to take off ASAP. Mitch and Dennis were of a like mind, too. JP, not so much. It seems he had a commitment that was important to him…

Isn’t it funny how once even one other person enters the picture, everything gets really complex! If females are involved, either directly or indirectly, things can get incredibly complicated… to the point many of us wonder why we bother to include them in the first place…? (Later on, however, it usually comes to us why we did!)

Our plan got modified right from the start due to the weather factors changing. Because of flooding along the Sabine River causing sections of I-10 to be closed, Dennis and I eventually decided to hook up in Shreveport, LA, then take I-20 west. JP would leave his place and catch up with us in Weatherford, TX (just west of Ft. Worth). Mitch left home on Thursday, I left on Friday, Dennis on Saturday, JP on Sunday… Somehow we all managed to make it to the hook up points without a hitch. Mitch wouldn’t meet up with us until Monday when we could all converge in New Mexico.

My first night was in Meridian, MS. I’d left the hacienda just after noon on Friday, so I didn’t make a huge day of riding. I was just eager to begin the adventure, so even a short day was preferable to waiting yet another day! I couldn’t leave any earlier, because I had a commitment the morning of my departure date that I didn’t want to break.

The ride was great. Damp in a few places, even a couple of brief very light showers. Never suited up, though, as the little bits of moisture were more of a nuisance than anything else. An uneventful ride, actually… well, there was that one thing…

Riding along enjoying the breeze, a thought came to me: I’d forgotten to pack my shaving kit. Dang, all my usual stuff is in there plus extra bike keys and my passport. Nothing planned that might require the passport, though, so no real problem there.

I keep at least one extra bike key on my person when riding, so no real danger there either. Since I was as far away from home as I was by the time this all occurred to me, it made more sense to just buy new stuff rather than to return home. Besides, I was on the road, after all, and returning home anytime soon was to be avoided if at all possible!

I got a room in Meridian and settled in for the evening. Following my brief little shopping spree at Wally-World, Dennis and I chatted on our phones about us meeting up in Shreveport, LA, the next evening, but he was itching to ride also. We modified our plan slightly so we could hook up in Jackson, MS, instead. Then it was lights out, eyelids slammed shut, and blissful in-flight movies for the remainder of the evening…

Dennis and I arrived at the meet up place in Jackson within a few minutes of each other! WOW! Talk about a plan coming together. We’d both started the day off in more somewhat sloppy weather, but by the time we both neared Jackson we both had run out of it and into cloudy skies and dry roads.

It remained rain free for the rest of the trip! In fact, we were in sunshine from mid-afternoon that first day together and every day afterward with only one or two exceptions. The Gerbings, however, were required most days all day, others only part of the day… very few not at all.

Dennis and I rode on to Marshall, TX, where we got a room. Staying at our motel, and most others in the area, was a group of GWRRA members having some sort or rally/get together. Nice folks, and we got a chance to chat with some. Always pleasant to visit with our cousins… Not really brothers, though, even though I do like those folks a lot… Heck, I’m even a ‘life member’ of that group… although I haven’t participated in a chapter in more than twenty years.

Different ideas about riding and organization styles and structure, which of course, I’m not a huge fan of any kind anyway, although the VRCC does come closer for me than any other. Great organization and business model, however, and you certainly can’t argue with their success and longevity. It just doesn’t suit me quite right, though, so I ride on… mostly solo… occasionally in small groups, and only rarely in larger ones.

Dennis and I made it to Weatherford, TX, Sunday and JP arrived to link up with us… the group was almost composed. The following day, the three of us rode to Artesia, NM, and there Mitch cruised in and made our group complete.

The ride over to Artesia was a pretty good ride, but there were a couple of curious events that stand out in my recollector archives… More about that in the next installment…

DDT