Took a pretty good ride today. At the beginning of the week I wasn't sure if I'd be able to take a ride this weekend due to time, money, and the wife so I was going to content myself with a small ride into town on Thursday. BUT by Wednesday things changed: was going to be off Sunday and the wife was planning to go visit some family for the weekend. What to do ... what to do? So of coarse I planned out a trip and picked Egypt, TX as my spot. Apparently Texas is literally covered in small towns that were founded by some unoriginal people (joking) who pretty much just picked a random country or capital city to name themselves after -- Macedonia, China, and Moscow for example. Anyway I wanted to get a good picture of my bike in front of a "Welcome to Egypt, TX" sign for the giggles.
Sunday morning rolls around and I'm at the local Jiffy Lube getting my work truck serviced and reading a Ride Texas magazine (which I've never even seen a this place before and I come here often ... so go figure), when I decide to double check my assumed route again. I get tired of looking for Egypt, TX on the map where I KNOW it is and just type it in ... only to learn its about 100 miles south of where I thought it was. Apparently there are two Egypt, TX ... one being an actual town and one just calling itself that without actually being it ... glad I worked that out before I got there.
So I decide to improvise at the last second and pick to go around Sam Houston National Forest because ... well despite living 20 miles away for the past 26 years I've never actually been anywhere near it. So I load up the bike (with gas ...) and put on my gremlin bell and burn out. I head up Hwy 59, the soon-to-be Trans-Texas Corridor Interstate 69 -- its not suppose to exist since I believe a few years ago the people of Texas were pretty heavily against it and it was suppose to stop ... but construction continues on so ...
I headed north to Cleveland and get off at FM 2025 and head north. This leads me right into the National Forest and I'm enjoying the sights.
I keep heading up FM 2025 until it dead ends into FM 150 and decide to take a break ... mainly cause I found this really big gun sitting outside of this abandoned store -- picture of it below. I send a few pics my dad's way knowing he will get a kick out of the gun and then ponder where to go next. I'm SUPPOSE to turn left, according to my pre-planned route, and that will take be back towards Maynard. But instead I decide to choose to be random over caution and turn right towards Point Blank and Onalaska! The name Onalaska calls to me since one day I want to ride to Deadhorse, Alaska.
I head east on FM 150 and decide, just as I get into Coldspring, that I want to be random again and turn off on FM 156 and go north before going east on FM 224. This is where I made my mistake ...
I live in a pretty flat area down but the more north you go the more hills and terrain changes you get. FM 224 turns out to be nothing but hills and a lot of turns. Nothing insane and probably boring for you experienced guys but for a rookie like myself I was taken aback and had some trouble getting the bike to go over some of the hills since they kind of came out of no where out of turns. The several miles north on FM 224 turn out to be my least favorite but a good learning experience. The whole reason I took that road was so I could get to Wolf Creek Park and get some good pictures of the bike with Lake Livingston in the background. Only to get there and find the park is closed ... son of a ...
I get back on 224 and head north pondering what to do since I neglected to look at my GPS on my phone to figure out where I wanted to go ... I had planned on a 20 minute stop for picture plus rest. Luckily the road reconnects to FM 156 some miles north and I take it towards Onalaska. And that's when I found a perfect spot for my picture of the lake!
Well kinda anyway ...
Getting back on the road I eventually ran into FM 190 and took it into Onalaska and down into Livingston for my journey back on Hwy 59. When I came back to the exit for FM2025 I decided it was too early to head back so I turned to go back down and follow my original route. I'm glad I did when I went left on FM 150 I eventually came to FM1725 and took it south.
Without a doubt the best segment of the trip was down 1725. The roads were perfect or so it felt. The bike was able to get up to 75 or so and growled along well and the turns were tight enough not to be too boring for me without being too tight requiring me to let off the throttle.
It was here I saw a 20' Raindeer with a family of panda's riding on its back and damn near went off the road. I turned around and went back and noticed it was a yard ornament but there was nowhere decent to pull over so I could get a picture ... maybe next time. Still it was shocking to see. Took 1725 down to FM 105 which took me back to 59. And then I just grabbed a late lunch and took it to the house.
That's a bit of a long-winded write up for what amounted to a 160 mile trip, but it was my first one where I took pictures so I felt pretty good about the whole thing.
Oh I nearly forgot ...
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