So my son Daniel and I rode over to Austin last Thursday evening and spent the night at Woodbutcher's place, about 160 miles. Friday morning, we got up early and headed for a nearby gas station to see if there might be anyone waiting to ride with us even though no one posted up that they were coming. It was fortunate that we stopped because we found Arnold "Big A" sitting in the parking lot! A pleasant surprise it was because I had not seen him in 10 years I think! He was on a Africa Twin. He joined us and we headed South through Dripping Springs toward Blanco to meet up with another TWT rider, Craig "CZ47racer". He was on a Ducati something adventure bike, pretty, but the model name escapes me
We continued on down toward Boerne and then started heading back North, generally toward Comfort, Luchenback, Fredericksburg, Enchanted Rock, and finally the Willow City loop. We parted ways at the loop as Arnold wanted to head up to Llano and Craig needed to get on back to San Antonio. Daniel and I headed up Althaus-Davis Rd., and tried to make the crossing at Sandy Creek on CR 310. Being that we were alone, I walked across and then decided not to chance the crossing as the last bit was quite slick and the water was moving pretty fast. We back tracked up to 71 and then worked our way down to Marble Falls, eventually running FM 1431 back over to Leander. I made a short stop at Will "birdwh" Bird's house for a visit and to invite him to the 10th Annual TWT BBQ the next day at Woodbutcher's home. Then it was back to Woodbutcher's place for the evening to hang out with Dahveed, Woodbutcher, and M38A1 for the night. The ride was excellent and the flowers fantastic. We put in right at 320 miles for the day, by far Daniel's longest day on the bike. We were both a bit tender as the stock seat on my 2017 1200 GS is pretty bad. An after market seat is now at the top of the farkle list! In the morning we headed back over to Hutto for the Pie Run then hauled back to Woodbutcher's for the BBQ. Around 4:30pm or so, we started back to Huntsville with Snoopster in tow. She had ridden over from Huntsville for the BBQ. The weather was SUPERB all weekend.
Carol Hatch, a local artist doing water colors on home made paper!
The flowers were like this on both sides of the highway from Enchanted Rock all the way back over to the Willow City Loop. This is near the start of the North side of the loop.
Blue Bonnets on the Willow City Loop were definitely past their peak, but all the other flowers were still nice!
The flowers along parts of Althaus-Davis Rd., were prettier than on Willow City Loop, especially the Blue Bonnets. They were not as faded.
I did this years ago, like in 2003, on a VFR 800 loaded down with GIVI side cases and a top case. It wasn't fun! But, once across, I switched bikes with my buddy and got my first ride on an R1150GS... I was hooked and had one a few months later. This day, I walked across and checked it out first. That whole section just beyond the rocks on the right was about 4" deep, moving fast, and REAL slick. So we decided to take the cautious way out, which only had a short and SLICK crossing.
Here's the GPX File.
GPX viewer