483 miles
7:58 Moving time
San Antonio-Big Bend, TX

Well little did I know that when John Ryan said to me at the NY ADVrider send-off for me “hey, I have some good friends in Big Bend if you get that way in your travels”, that he’d actually be hooking me up with some celebrities in the BMW motorcycle world. (I should have guesed since he’s someone to celebrate as well–you know, that guy you see *everywhere* in the one piece riding suit with the NASA emblem on it–he’s also retrofitted his FJR (?) to hold something like a 13 gallon gas tank so he can go off and ride crazy stuff like Key West to Prudhoe bay in 38 (?) hours. Who’s gonna beat THAT record? It’s my understanding that John is also semi-sponsored by Twisted Throttle [ok, folks, help me out with my facts] and I have bumped innto him at a few other events, like Daytona Bike Week (2009).

Anyway, I got a late start from San Antonio–my LL Bean package did NOT come on time, so I had to wait for the mountaineering store to open so I could get the last item on my list: a water purifier (I bought the Steripen–haven’t used it yet). I figured if I drink 2-3 liters of water per day at $1/liter, that’s roughly $540 of water since it’s not recommended to drink the local water) OR I can get a Steripen for $90 and purify tap water. It’s a no brainer and then I’ll have the Steripen for future trips as well.

OK, so 11:00 was not such a great time to get rolling, but a gal’s gotta do what a gal’s gotta do. So I got going and pretty much didn’t stop. I’d had a nice breakfast with Linda, and Joel had left me a diagram of how to get out of town and onto the scenic route (90) roughly along the coast of Texas. this was the same road Edward and I’d rode West-East coming home in September, and I began to miss him lots. What a great trip we’d had this summer. Oh and by the way, Edward has finished the rider report on the first part of the trip–Trans America Trail–on ADVrider.com link: https://www.advrider.com/forums/showthread.php?p=10991980 if you are interested in a day-by-day recount and seeing lots of our pictures.

On Rt 90 I saw a lot of this

Not a lot of services along the way, so I found the most discreet pottie place I could

More of this

Then it got dark. And I ride in the dark. COLD and dark. Come on, the first time I rode through Texas (Sept 2009) they’d just broken their 2 year dry spell and we were cold and WET every day. Now it was cold. Isn’t Texas supposed to be w-a-r-m? And, dang it, I’d shipped my Gerbings electric jacket home from Dallas thinking *surely* it would be warm from here South.

Wrong!

I rolled in, frozen, after seeing 23 deer along the road (including a very nice and thankfully very stationary eight point buck). Luckily for me, Voni and Paul have decades of motorcycle travel under their belts, so they knew that immediately I needed warmth and food. We sat by the fire and talked motorcycles until I had to go to bed.