Two Wheeled Texans - July Pie Run

[Hemibee]

The Adventures of Floyd, Tim & Tony
or The Conroe to Godley Pie Run Ride Report

I would say we got started bright and early for out ride from Conroe to Godley for the July 31, 2010 Two Wheeled Texans monthly Pie Run, but that would be a lie, it wasn't bright.  Here we are ready to leave the Chevron Station at I-45 North and League Line Road....



Like I said, it was early but not bright out when we left Conroe.  For Floyd, he had already been on the road about an hour or so to meet us in Conroe.

Jack (was unable to make the ride) had laid out a pretty good route for us to follow so we were planning to follow it to Godley, but notice the key word here... "planning."  Tim and Floyd made the first mistake of the trip, they saw the GPS on my bike and said "you lead, we follow."  To which I made the second mistake by saying "OK."  Now our adventure is ready to begin.

With the moon clearly visible, I thought it might be best if we slabbed it up to Centerville to avoid running some unfamiliar FM roads in the heavy deer populated areas between Huntsville and Marquez.  The other thought was this would allow us to knock about 45 minutes off the ride which would allow us more stops and time to spend at the three courthouses we planned to stop at on the ride up.

We make it pretty much to Centerville with no problems and the GPS is showing we have actually shaved just over an hour from our ETA to Godley.

Just as we get to the Centerville exit I get a visitor inside my helmet, a dang fly has found away to get inside my visor.  It must have been a fruit fly because he was acting real funny.  No problem, I'm driving slow enough I can lift the visor to let him out.  So visor lifted, move up to the stop sign closed the visor and make the turn and head across to Woodie's for a quick hydration stop.  The dern fly is still on the inside of the visor and appears to be hanging on for dear life.  Swat the fly off and continue with the stop.

Well we are back on the road, heading west on Hwy 7 to FM 937 where we will turn north to Groesbeck for our first courthouse stop.  Just as I'm pulling away from the four-way stop I have another visitor inside my helmet, a spider as big as Dallas is staring at me, eye to eye.  I'm trying to pull to the side of the road and get the helmet off at the same time.  Spiders as big as Dallas have this odd ability when mashed between your fingers to get real small, you would have thought he was only a tiny spider from the low amount of goo he left on my glove after I mashed him.

So back on the road we head toward Groesbeck and capture our first courthouse...



Back on the road and enjoying the ride to Mexia.  Jack picked out a good route, too bad he wasn't there to enjoy the ride and lead the way.  Remember our first and second mistakes?  Well this is where they come into play, somehow the GPS went stupid and told us to turn on US 84 toward Waco.  I know this isn't correct according to the route Jack had laid out in Google Map but since I had the GPS set to scooter mode I thought it was probably taking us down a better "scooter" friendly road.  Well a short distance down the road it tells us to turn around and head back to Groesbeck but before I can made the change of direction it recalculates the route and points 5.3 miles further down 84 to make a turn to the north so I decided it had had a hiccup earlier and was now on track.  Well we finally come to the end of the road, it teed into another FM and the GPS says turn right, back toward Mexia.  The whole time I know Floyd and Tim are thinking I'm fixin' to take them down some pig trail thru the fields.  We stop and discuss the GPS directions and decide to do the opposite of what it is telling us to do, we turn left and head for Prairie Hill.  That hour we saved earlier is starting to look like a real good idea.

We gas up at Prairie Hill and head west on 84 toward Waco, now the GPS says turn right again so we turn  on FM 939 and ride pass Crooked Creek (not an open weekend so no off road bikes insight) and head for Hwy 31 where the GPS once again says turn right.  Maybe the GPS knows what it is talking about so I follow its directions and guess where we end up?  Yep, Hubbard which if we had turned right the first time was only about 5 miles from the time we decided to turn opposite of it's directions.  So we are now back on track and headed for Hillsboro and our second planned courthouse....






A run up to Cleburne and our third stop for a courthouse photo....




Leaving the Cleburne courthouse we came close to observing an Audi S5 getting tore up.  Not sure if the idiot ran the red light as we were turning to head for Godley or if he was in the far right lane and decided he wanted to make a mad turn across traffic to continue toward Godley.  Some how he missed all the other cars at the intersection and us.  I just glad we were on the inside of the turn and not on the outer edge.  To make sure he was not beside us I moved over the first chance I had to get behind him.  Just a short ways up the road he had increased the distance and we didn't see him again but I did notice an older lady in a small import that did appear to not be watching traffic.  Knowing that we would be turning left in a few blocks and she was in the left lane, I moved over behind her.  At the next red light Floyd pulled up beside me and I know he was wondering why I had gotten behind this woman when there was pretty clear sailing in front of her.  At about that time the traffic in the left turn lane started turning and she just took off straight down the road, never even appearing to look up.  I think it was about that time Floyd decided I had made the right move.  Shortly there after we arrive at Godley...


Some of my photos of the 120 bikes at the café...

One good looking Tiger


Another good looking Tiger




























Return trip to Conroe report and photos to follow...

[Hemibee]

The Continued Adventures of Floyd, Tim & Tony
or The Ride Home

I guess I should start by backing up to finish the previous posting...

Godley, Texas...





They put out the welcome sign for us...



Our arrival...

There's that good looking Tiger again...



First time I've had her on the highway for an extend amount of time and I'm very pleased with the way she ran.  I just have to remember to look down at the speedometer every now and then especially when traveling thru areas known to have an over abundance of DPS Troopers.  Didn't get to meet any of them this trip but there was a couple of incidents that we had the opportunity to meet them but I got the Tiger below Warp Speed just in time.


Floyd...




Tim...




Tim and I heading toward the café entrance, that's us back behind the bikes.  Didn't see Floyd but found him in the café sizing up the buffet







Forgot to get a picture of the buffet plate I had but it was plenty full, almost needed a cart to carry it to the table.

Remembered to take a photo of the pie before it was too late...


See how they even broke out the good china for us?

The meal was completed and it was time to hit the road again.  Floyd headed on back to Houston but Tim and I were going to do a little more exploring around the Lake Whitney area so we head out to the Southwest.

Below the Lake Whitney Dam...






We had run several roads around the lake and decided to start trying to locate a place for the night.  We weren't that far from Waco so we headed that way and would stop by my son's apartment to see if there was any starving college students that wanted a free meal.  After we had the chance to rest and cool off in my son's apartment I offered to buy everyone a meal at Rosati's, about the best Chicago style pizza you will find south of Chicago.  At least that's what I'm told, never been to Chicago to try a pizza so I have no first hand experience.

But before we head that way a quick stop in downtown Waco for a photo of the McLennan County Courthouse...




I forgot to get photos of the pizza but believe me it is big.  You have the normal size pizza you will get anywhere else but being Texas, Rosati's has a Texas sized pizza that fed two hungry bikers and 3 college students




Instead of heading toward home we decide to overnight in Waco and head out for Conroe Sunday morning.  Didn't do much site seeing on the route home except for stopping at Buckee's and watching the scenery moving in and out of the store...



Arrive back home mid-day Sunday with 525.3 additional miles on the Tiger.  After putting those miles on the bike in search of a piece of pie, guess what I found when I arrived back at the house...



You guessed it, a homemade lemon pie that was hands down better than the coconut cream I had in Godley.

Some additional photos of the bikes in Godley...















A couple more from Hillsboro...