Texas Tour; Day 5

We rode away from our Best Western in Llano at 9:30 under cloudy skies and it was already 73 degrees.  The weather was BUENO.

We rode directly to Longhorn Cavern State Park, which took a little over 30 minutes.  Their first tour of the cavern was at 11:00 so we took that time to take a hike on the nature trail -nature trail in Longhorn Cavern State Parkand climb to the top of the three story observation tower.

Amy was our energetic and enthusiastic guide for our one and a half hour tour of the cave.Amy - our tour guide; Longhorn Cavern tourThe cave was formed by an underground river and during periods of heavy rain the cave can still fill up with water.  The river that formed the cave is now running below the cave.  One of the cave formations (shaped like a dog – you can see it in the photos) was broken in 1957 by a woman on a tour, who leaned on it.  She was fined over $7,000!

Perhaps the most cool thing about the cave tour was seeing seven different bats hanging on the ceiling of the cave in different areas.  The first bat we saw released itself from the ceiling and flew away.  We had never seen a bat fly before.bat; Longhorn Cavern

After our cave tour we rode to Burnet, TX for a late lunch at the Crazy Gal’s Café.  It was a very good lunch of chicken fried chicken.lunch in Burnet, TX

From Burnet we rode north and west to the Colorado Bend State Park near Bend, TX.  The park is on the Colorado River, which we had crossed numerous times on this trip.  There was about two miles of gravel road taking us to the park and all the roads in the park were gravel.gravel road to Gorman Falls; Colorado Bend State Park (CBSP)Not BUENO.

We hiked the 1.5 miles to Gorman Falls.  This hike is over some very rocky and rough terrain.  As the trail drops precipitously over rocks to the bottom of the falls there is a steel cable hand rail to assist in the descent.  It is safe to say we got our exercise today.  The view of the falls made it all worthwhile, however.Gorman Falls; CBSP

We got back to our motel at 6:30 after riding 135 miles.  The high temperature today was 81.  This was appreciated even more when we saw it was 40 degrees back home.

For more pictures from today click on the following link: https://picasaweb.google.com/104542123131082631220/TexasTourDay5041713?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCLK3mc2rtLjBWg&feat=directlink

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Colorado; Day 9; June 30, 2012

Image
The evening of June 29th we saw the play, “Is He Dead” at the Creede Repertory Theater ( http://www.creederep.org/ ).  It was very entertaining,  one of the better plays I’ve seen. When we drove away from Creede at 6:05 am it was 41 degrees.  A short distance south the temperature dropped to 39.  We tried soaking up the cold for what we knew would be a hot afternoon. We rode South Fork and then east to Alamosa.  From Alamosa we took a detour north up Hwy 17 to see the UFO Watchtower ( http://www.ufowatchtower.com/ ).  It is a place for UFO enthusiasts to go to watch for UFO’s.  The lady who runs the place said something about some sort of vortex existing on the property.  Weird stuff, even for an open-minded guy like me. If the UFO Watchtower wasn’t weird enough we saw a male driving a Jeep with eye lashes over the headlights at a gas station in Alamosa, CO.  Hopefully it was his wife’s Jeep and he was just gassing it up for her. We continued east to Walsenburg, LaJunta, and La
Read more

Florida Trip; Day 15

Image
At 7:30AM we drove away from Russellville, AR on a cold 25 degree morning. At least the sun was coming up. Our route was 7 north to Harrison; 65 north to Springfield, MO; I-44 west; 13 north to Clinton; 7 north to Harrisonville; I-49 north; I-435 west to Kansas in the KC area and home. Hwy 7 in Arkansas is a scenic route with hills and curves galore. We stopped several times for photos. On the south side of Bolivar, MO we enjoyed lunch at Smith's Restaurant. It was 39 degrees when we arrived home at 2:20 but we saw a high of 44. It was a good day for our final of the trip. We drove 330 miles today and the total trip mileage was 3,109. I only have 6 photos today but you can click here to see them -  Final Day Pics
Read more

My Last Ride

On January 11th, 2017, I departed on a ride to Kelli's Korner (Paradise, MO - near Smithville, MO) for lunch with four friends (Carl, Gary, Bill and Larry). It was a beautiful day, which was all the excuse we needed for a ride. I was leading the group and we were taking a long way there. Riding north on county road N, about 6 miles north of Hwy 152 and I-435, the road turned and I didn't. I exited the road into a field. Fortunately there were no fences, trees, rocks, oncoming cars, etc. I have no explanation for this except that I was out of it for awhile. I remember crossing the center line but I was looking down at that time, which is weird. I have no memory of seeing anything after that until I was laying in the field separated from my motorcycle. I do remember a sensation of tumbling but that is all. My first thought was to drive my motorcycle out of the field and get it cleaned up so Chris would not know what I did. What a ridiculous idea that was. After I'd been up
Read more