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 2^nd 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 2^nd 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 2^nd 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!