Colorado Cruiser: Carlsbad and Texas Hill Country Ride

This was mostly a travelling day. After a cheap Super 8 breakfast, we hopped on the freeway and set the cruise control on 80mph heading East. The skies were overcast and rain threatened through the whole ride. We occasionally passed wet sections of highway, but the rain never did come down on us.

We only got a little spatter just as we entered Kerville. We stopped at Cracker Barrel for lunch, and as we waited for a table and talked, we realized that although we'd emailed back and forth about hotels, neither John, nor I had actually booked a hotel room. So I sat in a nice comfy rocking chair and booked a room at the Super 8 hotel.

After lunch we checked into the room. As we were unloading bikes, another biker walked over to chat. We exchanged the usual "where ya from" and "where you headed" comments, then he started talking about his love of guns and shooting. After a minute, John turned and walked into the room and I was stuck there listening as the guy spewed bullet velocities, drop, and grouping. He talked for about 30 minutes with me saying nothing in reply but a few head nods. His riding buddies were over by their bikes and kept looking my way with knowing grins on their faces. The rotters.

Eventually he paused for more than 2 seconds and I said "Sounds great" and ran into the room. We watched out the peep hole till he went in his room, then quickly unloaded the bikes.

Once the bikes were unloaded, we headed back out on the road. John and I had heard that Luckenbach was nearby and we decided to go see what it was all about.

We headed North West up highway 16 toward the tourist town of Fredericksburg. Highway 16 is one of the great roads in the area, so we were also crossing one of the destination roads off of our list.

In Fredericksburg we turned right on main street and found ourselves in the middle of the touristy shopping area. There were little shops along both sides of the road and people everywhere. We rode through without stopping, knowing that we'd be coming back this same way.

A few miles out of town we turned South West onto a smaller road. We soon saw a sign that said "Luckenbach town loop turn right", so we turned off onto a little one lane road. There was a very large parking lot beside the road, but we kept going straight and soon found ourselves in the middle of about 6 buildings and several hundred people. I missed the turnoff to the motorcycle parking, so we had to follow the road back out to the highway and loop back around again. This time I pulled in with about 10 other motorcycles and parked.

As soon as I turned the bike off I could hear country music coming from the large gathering of people across the road. The singer and his band weren't bad, but they weren't great. He sang a song I didn't know and could barely understand. In between songs he cracked crude jokes. I wasn't a fan.

We took pictures in front of the Luckenbach Post Office, then pictures of the bikes and the band.

We walked around a bit looking at the store, snacks, and beer stands. It was pretty small.

Once we'd seen enough, we got on the bikes and headed back to Fredericksburg. We parked the bikes and walked up one side of the street and down the other. I really didn't see much of interest, but I'm sure my wife would have loved it.

We rode back to the hotel and took a break. John wasn't hungry at all, so I started looking through Yelp for someplace to eat. Allot of the places listed were either shut down or closed on Sunday. I wound up at a Japenese Sushi place, but instead of Sushi, I just got a bento box. It was very good.

Back at the room I met another biker. I cringed as he introduced himself, but he just wanted to chat about bikes, rides, and destinations. He was normal and we had a good chat.

I woke up to a winter storm warning for Colorado....BUT I'M NOT IN COLORADO!!!!