Big Tex Rally 2013
After the
whirlwind tour during The Void and taking a quick day off to wash and repack,
it was time to head off for the 2nd running of the Big Tex
Rally. David Clark from Athens was
coming over for the ride out to Texas, encountered tire problems outside of
Atlanta but made it to the house for supper and rest before heading off to
Huntsville, TX where we were spending the
night with an old friend, Chris Stallings, who would be riding with us during
the rally.
Off early
and west we headed. There is always the
obligatory stop in Jackson, MS for breakfast and gas – I do love Cracker Barrel
breakfast! Spitting rain the followed us
the rest of the way into Huntsville. Of
course it would rain, we were going to rally! We spent a pleasant evening with Chris and Nancy resting up for the next few days. Of course we kicked tires and compared motorcycle stuff. I am continually amazed at the number of devices we use to navigate. Between the three motorcycles, there were 8 different GPS systems which would often provide eight different ways to get somewhere. We normally just went with majority rule.
We were
starting the rally in Victoria, TX, one of the four start locations for the
rally. Enroute to Victoria, we stopped
in Brenham to tour the Blue Bell Ice Cream factory. It is an amazing operation that takes the
milk of 30,000 cows per day to keep up with demand. Of course, we enjoyed the free samples at the
end of the tour and the obligatory picture of Barbara posing in her Blue Bell
Ice Cream hat.
We made in
to Victoria without incident making another almost mandatory rally stop at Wal Mart to
finish out our supplies for the upcoming rally.
There was a loosely organized dinner that evening so we enjoyed our
dinner and beverages before settling in for an early morning start. Rider’s meeting started at 5:30 AM with us
finishing paperwork, sealing driver’s license and insurance information into a
envelope (worth lots of points if you didn’t have an encounter with one of the
fine law enforcement officers of Texas), and last minute instructions and
admonishment from the Rallymaster to be safe.
We kicked
off the rally at 6:00 AM sharp and headed off to our first bonus of the day in
Tilden, TX for a photo of a boot hill cemetery.
After our superb planning during the Void, we were fairly confident in
our timing and routing. This soon proved
to be quite untrue! South Texas is
undergoing an oil boom so we had to deal with oil field traffic and construction. Scheduled arrival at Boot Hill was 7:41 and
we didn’t arrive until 8:05. Not a good
way to start, but figured we would make up the time in the long run to
Brownsville.
Well, that
didn’t happen either. It wasn’t traffic,
we weren’t going slow, we just kept falling further and further behind. I can’t really blame it on the butterfly/dragonfly
migration that was happening since all that did was make a mess of helmets and
bikes. Something was happening to our
timing and we were at a loss to figure out why.
Scheduled arrival at the Palmito Battlefield historical marker was 11:04
and we arrived at 11:51. Yep, losing
more time with each bonus stop.
There was but choice but to soldier on at this point, so we pointed our bikes north towards
the City Hall of Rio Grande, TX. There
were 12 options to pick up Texas Icons at some point during the rally. Anything from a photo in front of the Alamo,
cactus, armadillos, rodeo grounds, etc could all be claimed at any point in the
rally. One of the icons was a posted
sign from the Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association. These distinctive blue signs could be found
on any number of ranch gates. We just
kept going by them before finally spotting one and turning around to get the
bonus.
Scheduled
arrival into Rio Grande was 12:57 PM and we finally arrived at 1:55 PM. We were now an hour behind but snapped our
picture and got out of there as quickly as possible.
Laredo is
the next stop for a photo of a granite bench dedicated to a Texas
statesman. Laredo sits directly on the
Mexican border with several crossings into Mexico. The GPS has us headed for one of the crossing
for some reason or another. Having
absolutely no desire to cross into Mexico, we picked our way through a maze of
one way streets to the bonus.
Scheduled
arrival was 2:47 and we arrived at 4:11.
We are 583 miles into a planned 1530 mile route and are almost an hour
and a half behind schedule. Something
soon had to give and it was to be scheduled bonus locations!
We made the
next bonus in Catarina at 5:33 still over 1.5 hours behind schedule. Then we off to Crystal City, TX for a photo of
Popeye. Crystal City, TX claims to be
the Spinach Capital of the World and what more fitting monument than
Popeye. The statue was erected in 1937
in front of City Hall. We snapped our
picture of Popeye at 6:07 PM still over 1.5 hours behind.
We consulted
a bit and decided that we had to drop bonuses in order to catch up. We didn’t drop a high point bonus outside of
Leakey so that’s where we headed. Now it
was dark, we were in the Texas Hill Country full of curvy roads and a deer
population as thick as fleas on a stray dog’s back! Of yeah….we should mention that it started to
rain. Not a gentle spitting rain, but
rain driven by a fall Texas thunderstorm!
Oh the joys of rallying!
We had
gotten separated from David at some point but were all going to meet at the
selected motel for out rest bonus. As we
approached the coordinates for the historical marker for the massacre of the
McLaurin family by renegade Apache Indians, we found nothing even closely
resembling a historical marker. Road
signs and an entrance to a ranch yes, but no historical marker. We eased a bit further down this very dark,
narrow, wet road and saw a sign that said the historical marker was a mile
ahead. We also found David who was quite
frustrated at this point having searched the area for over 20 minutes. Sure enough, a mile down the road was the
marker so photos were snapped and off we went.
It is 7:55 PM, we are 897 miles into the rally and way behind
schedule. David went one way…..we went
the other thanks to Ms. Garmin who has been known to take strange routes at
times.
It is
raining, the temperature has dropped 20 degrees in the span of minutes, and it
is 123 miles to our motel in Brady where we had made advance reservations. There really was no option but to hunker down
and roll on through the storm. We rolled into Brady and started our rest
bonus at 10:04 PM. Quick trip to
McDonalds for some supper and soon were snoozing planning to take full
advantage of the big points available for taking a full 8 hour rest bonus.
We dropped 3
more bonuses in an attempt to get back on schedule for the 2nd day
of the rally. We’re off to Luckenbach,
TX – population 2!
It’s a quite chilly
morning with temperatures in the high 40’s and seeing the sunrise was very
welcome. Arriving at Luckenbach at 7:44
AM, we quickly found the required license plate, took a photo, and headed to
Dead Man’s Hole. And oh look, and armadillo too!
One of the Texas Icon
bonuses was to take a photo seated on the back of a Texas Longhorn cow. Too early for the cow so that one was
missed. We later learned the longhorn arrived about 15 minutes after we left.
Dead Man’s
Hole was a cave almost 200 feet deep filled with toxic gas. A large oak tree stood over the entrance –
perfect as a hanging tree. The story
goes that as the doomed man was hung and started to struggle, the rope would be
cut, dropping him to his fate at the bottom of the cave. The hole has long since been covered, but a
historical marker commemorates the site.
We headed
into Bastrop for the next bonus. Ardys
Kellerman, a legend in the long distance motorcycle community, was killed in a
tragic motorcycle accident earlier this year at the age of 81. Ardys didn’t start riding until she was in
her 50’s but had documented riding over one million miles on BMW motorcycles. Ardys was a joy to be around and always had a
ready smile, a cheerful attitude and was best known by her nickname -
Queenie. Prior to her passing, she had mentioned to the Rallymaster, Wayne Boyter, that the statue would make a good
bonus for a rally. Named in her honor,
Queenie’s Request, was a statue of a fireman saving a small child. We were honored to include it in our
route.
The next
stop in our tour of Texas was Auditorium Shores Park in Austin for a photo at
the Stevie Ray Vaughn statue. The rally
instructions stated that at exactly noon a photographer would take one photo of
anyone present. You and your rally flag
had to be visible in the photo. We
arrived a bit early, found a place to park and made our way across the park to
the statue. Everyone clustered around
the statue trying to ensure they would be visible in the photo. And exactly as stated, at noon a photo was
taken and everyone scattered to the winds.
Due to the
horrible schedule of the previous days exploits, we modified our plan and
headed to a big point bonus outside of Belton, TX. Somehow Chris got separated from us as we
followed David on a grand tour of downtown Austin and the state capital
building. We finally made our way to
I-35, when David announced his rear tire was going flat again. Knowing there was nothing we could do at the
point, we waved and left him on his own.
We zipped up I-35 to Belton where we would find the next 2000 point
bonus.
At the
Golden Ranch, we would have the chance to fire a handgun at our rally
flag. In order to score the points, you
had to hit your rally flag with at least one shot. Obviously, everyone who had left Stevie Ray
Vaughn has the same idea and the line to shoot was quite long. We waited over an hour to shoot and I quickly
managed to put all three shots into my rally flag.
The deadline
to be at the finish line was 6:00PM. We
still had to make our way to Stephenville, TX for a mandatory bonus at the Hard
8 BBQ where we had to sit down and eat a traditional Texas BBQ meal. I-35 was shutdown north of the shooting bonus
so we plotted a course avoiding the interstate and headed to Stephenville. Thank goodness for the high speed limits on
Texas two lane highways. Often 75mph, we
took full advantage and zipped into Hard 8 for some BBQ. Slow service made us a bit nervous as the
clock was definitely clicking down.
Grabbing gas for the final run into Dallas, we were off.
We managed
to check in at the finish with 15 minutes to spare! We did manage to find a car with horns on it!
Scoring time
now. We got our paperwork in order and
turned everything in to be scored. While
we waited, we relaxed in the bar/restaurant and spent time chatting with other
riders. Just so happens Auburn and Texas
A & M were playing and the TV was on.
Being a big Auburn fan and fueled by a couple of margaritas, Barbara
certainly let everyone know her allegiance as Auburn managed to defeat A &
M and Johnny Football.
David rolled
in a bit late with a new rear tire courtesy of a very accommodating Kawasaki
dealer in Austin.
Scoring as
horribly slow as a couple of the scheduled scorers had emergencies and couldn’t
make it. We enjoyed a couple more adult
beverages, a delicious Mexican buffet, and good company for a long time. We finally got our chance to get scored and
it was a painless process as we always try to make sure we don’t leave points
at the scoring table. Scoring continued
well into the late evening. Knowing that
we didn’t have a snowballs chance in hell of being in the top tier, we gave up
and headed to the room for a shower and bed.
We still had a 600 mile ride home Sunday morning.
The hotel
had some difficulty getting a rather meager breakfast out on time but we
finally were able to eat and hit the road.
The weather was nice and cool, the interstate boring as usual but we
made the dash home in a bit over 10 hours.
After a 2nd
place finish the weekend before, it was quite disappointing to finish at the
bottom of the list, but we did finish.
Overall, it was a great rally with the chance to see parts of Texas we
had never seen. We’ll be back next year
with a much greater appreciation of planning a rally in the great state of
Texas! East coast planning doesn't work in Texas!
