Post Apocalypse Pie Run 12/29/2012

[Hemibee]

Over on a regional forum that I hang out on, we have a monthly Pie Run to somewhere in the State.  The December Pie Run was scheduled for the weekend following the much talked about Mayan End of the World weekend.  Due to the fact that there may have only been some zombies running around following the "end of the World" this month's Pie Run took on a new name . . . the Post Apocalypse Pie Run.  Well as several of us knew, the Mayans weren't correct and the World would continue and we had a good chuckle at the name. 

As the date approached my normal posse had said they were going to be there if I laid out a route.  This is starting to put a little pressure on me to come up with a route that is different than the ones we have taken before to this same location and avoiding the highways.  I'm not sure if I can do it again but this time I was successful in laying out the route.  We only had short sections on this route that were on previous routes and each of those sections was actually in the reverse direction so they are still not the same.

Our route, round-trip.
http://goo.gl/maps/LehyL

The weather forecast was looking good for the ride, the low was to be around 45 F (7C) and the high was to be around 70F (21C).  Do you know the true job of an Economist?  It's to make the weatherman look intelligent, the low when I pulled out of my garage was 26F (-3C) and most of the ride was in temperatures around 30F (-1C) and if you factor in the windchill we were looking at 9F (-13C) from the new windchill charts or -6F (-21C) using the old windchill charts.  I don't care which chart you use, it was down right COLD on the morning ride.  I did find this photo of one of our group, taken at our warming stop.


The afternoon highs weren't much better when you compare them to the forecasted high.  We did manage to get a high of what was projected to be the low, 45F (7C).  But I was lucky and my wife gave me a new jacket for Christmas, it was a good test of my new jacket.  While my hands and legs froze, my upper body stayed nice and comfortable which was better than the others were reporting with their leather jackets and sweatshirts on.  They were real surprised when they found out all I had on was my jacket and T-Shirt with a long sleeve Nike compression top under the T-Shirt.  Everyone that talked about this jacket was correct, this is one sweet jacket, a Tourmaster Transition II and I really like it.

Other than making one stop to warm up and having a dump truck with a track-hoe pull out in front of me, the trip to the Moosehead Café was uneventful.     I saw the truck start rolling out into the road from a good distance and started flagging the others to slow down.  We slowed down quick enough that the truck made it across our lane and into his before we reached the intersection.  I have the photos of him pulling out in the attached slideshow, but it does not appear he was as close as he really was.  I know he knew what he had done because he waved and was grinning when he went passed me. 


Ride up slideshow . . .


The café we were meeting at, the Moosehead Café is in Crockett located in Houston County.  The town was named after David Crockett who reportedly had camped nearby on his way to the Mission San Antonio de Valero, the Alamo; the site was very near the Old San Antonio Road, also known as El Camino Real and as Kings Highway.  A family from Tennessee donated the land for the town and named it after Crockett, whom they had previously known. The town was incorporated in 1837, and a post office was granted the following year. Crockett was connected to Nacogdoches by stage service. In 1839 raids by the Alabama-Coushatta and Cherokee Indians forced the town's residents to take shelter in the fortified log courthouse. Crockett was a training center for Confederate conscripts during the Civil War. The railroad came through in 1872 enabling Crockett to exploit the county's timber resources. By 1885 the town was thriving with a population of 1,200 and the following year a school was opened for black girls. It evolved into Mary Allen Junior College, which operated into the 1970s. In 1904 lignite mining started and it peaked about 1910. The stands of timber were seriously depleted by the 1920s. The population was over 3,000 in the mid 1920s and by 1936, it was nearly 4,500. The population of Crockett increased while most of East Texas declined after World War II. It reached 5,000 by the 1960 census.

Well we arrived on The Square in Crockett 15 minutes ahead of the appointed time to find out most of the others had arrived an hour ahead of the appointed time.  This cut down on our tire kicking time from several minutes to none.  We headed on into the café to eat and warm up and found most of the others were finishing up as we were getting in our seats.  There was one big advantage to showing up after everyone else, the waitress wasn't busy with them and the kitchen had already sent out the other meals so we were able to order and get our food real quick.

Remember the temps we were faced with on the ride up there?  Well I didn't get cold until I had sat in my chair for a few minutes and then I started to shiver.  My legs were so cold I wanted to pour my coffee on them to try and get a little relief from the cold, but cooler heads prevailed and I just poured the coffee down my throat.  Luckily I warmed up enough that I had full range of motion in my legs before we headed out to get back on the bikes.

Well I was fighting my cold legs too much that it caused me to pull a stunt that a few others have done, I forgot to take photos of lunch but I did find these from one of the other riders, I too had the Cheeseburger and fries.



And the reason for the ride . . .


I don't know why anyone would have got a scoop of Blue Bell Ice Cream with their pie on a day like this but they did.

Well our meal was finished and we headed home with the slightly warmer temps.

Ride home Slideshow . . .


All in all, the final ride for 2012 was a great ride and if I do say so myself, the route up and back were very good.  Well as good as we get around here.  I checked my GPS and the route covered 242 miles by the route we took.  A round trip from here to Crockett can be completed in as little as 145 miles so our route was right at an extra hundred miles.

[Bixxer Bob]

Nice run HB, hope you thawed out ok 

[Hemibee]

It took a good hot shower but I was finally able to warm up. I was wanting to get another ride in yesterday to finish out the year but the weather wasn't cooperating, cold and misty all day yesterday and then today started out the same.

[Bixxer Bob]

It was a good fine day here yesterday, a little crisp at 4deg C ,  but the first dry day for ages.  Sadly I spent it working not riding but one of my winter jobs / hobbies is laying hedges.  I won't bore peeps with the details here or hijack, they can read about this ancient English art here:  http://www.hedgelayer.freeserve.co.uk/

[Hemibee]

Thanks for the link BB, I had never thought about what went into the laying hedges like doing them to avoid the nesting season. I'm going to have to do a little more reading on the subject as that is something I would like to do along my property line once I get to that point of cleaning it off.

[Kiwitex]

So when is the next one?
that looks like it could be fun, now it has warmed up a little!

[Hemibee]

Sorry I didn't see your post, I've been a way for a little while.

We do a Pie Run the last Saturday of each month to different location for each of them. The July Pie Run is the 27th @ Tony's Family Restaurant in Sealy, Texas.