Retirement Trip to THCR

[Capnrip]

OK, now that I'm on terminal leave to retirement, and Elizabeth is almost there, we took an amazing trip to Texas for COTA and the THCR. We wanted to go last year but Elizabeth couldn't get the time off but we weren't to be denied this year. We've both gotten into Moto GP and started the trip at COTA. We trucked the bike down and unloaded it at the hotel so we could take advantage of free bike parking. We had seats at the end of turn 12, which is at the end of the back straight, the fastest part of the track. Watching those guys ride was amazing, coming down the back stretch at over 200 then braking so hard the rear wheel comes off the ground for the turn at the end. COTA is a big track and just a gorgeous place.








Big crash on lap 1 of the Moto 2 race. Chantra ran into the back end of
Sam Lowes and took 4 riders out. All the riders were able to walk away.



Lunch time entertainment


PittsdriverWes was in town for the races and we had the pleasure of having dinner with him and his son Michael on Saturday night. No pictures of that, what happens at a Wes gathering stays at the Wes gathering.

[Capnrip]

The bluebonnets were just coming out good when we got to Austin. When we came back through after Bandera they must have been at their peak. as they were lush and gorgeous by the highways on the way home.



Elizabeth and Bluebonnets at COTA



On Sunday night we went to see the bats fly out from the Congress Avenue bridge in Austin. It's estimated that up to 1.5 million Mexican Free Tail bats migrate there to have their pups, almost all of the bats are female. The rest we didn't ask. It's estimated they eat between 10 and 30 thousand pounds of insects a night.



Next, on to Bandera!

[Doctor350]

Surely there were people dressed as Batman there. Please say it's true

[Capnrip]

There were two cute kids dressed as batman and batwoman.

[Martin_D]

Great stuff Wes !
We want more ...

[Capnrip]

We arrived at the Vaquero on Monday. The Vaquero was quite cool.



Stable genius planning for the day.



The Vaquero used to be called the River Inn, or Riverside Inn, I forget. Anyway, here's the river. All the rivers in the area were a gorgeous green, maybe limestone.Bandera was a cool town. The cowboy capital of the world they say. They had a really cool Frederic Remington statue there.

[Capnrip]

The area had some great riding, most notably the three sisters, Texas farm roads but I found all the roads in the area to be fun. You never knew what you'd see. On the first day we saw a ram about to cross the road. Many of the large ranches did exotic game hunting and we saw Spring Buck near the fences. Elizabeth saw an ostrich and someone in the group saw a zebra. Some riding pictures.

[Capnrip]

When we arrived Tracy at the Vaquero told us about steak night on Wednesday at one of the bars in town. You bring your own steak, they provided grills and some spices and for $8 you got a plate with a baked potato and a salad. They had a band and being a bar they had drinks. Bandera had a good butcher shop in town. The guy had some really nice looking meat and he was passionate about his business. I always like dealing with some one like that. We bought a cowboy ribeye that was about the same size as the one that turned Fred Flintstone's car over at the drive inn and got 10% off because it was steak night. The smart thing to do would have been to buy something smaller, but me and the smart thing to do never seem to travel in the same circles much. It just looked too good. It took us about 3 days to finish eating it. Tyson and Cathy went too, they are really enjoyable to spend time with and we enjoyed steak night with them. I think half the town was there too.

[McFly]

I'm glad you & others took pics Wes... I think I took about 10 all week. Just never seemed to think about pulling out the camera the entire time.

Ready for the next installment!!!

[Doctor350]

"Please, Sir, I Want Some More"

[allikanbe]

bring your own steak? wtf. i thought texas was cow country.

[955i]

Man, allikanbe, we had to carry them about a whole block! The butcher shop was 50 yards away. It was fun. People brought all kinds of things to grill - corn, chicken breasts, bacon wrapped stuff, jalapeno poppers, shishkibobs. It was fun.

[Capnrip]

It was marketing genius, and a lot of fun. It's cow country all right, steaks were easy to come by and it brought most of the town together. There were folks there from 8 to 80 and they sold a lot of beer. You could even bring your own liquor and they'd sell you the set ups.

[Capnrip]

So Thursday was Luckenbach day. That's not a holiday JB, just at this particular rally, especially if you're a newbie like me, you have to go to Luckenbach. Some pictures.





They had music everyday at 1. That didn't work out for us.




I was about to go all Yellowstone on this thing but Elizabeth stopped me.


We left Luckenbach for a brewery outside of Fredericksburg. Brewery business must be good.


We were one of the first ones in when they opened. We ordered a beer and after a couple of minutes one of the managers walks over with another one just like what we had. He said it was a "training mistake". Didn't look any different, didn't taste any different. May have changed my mRNA but what the heck, it was free beer.

Then it was time for dessert. Elizabeth loves Black Forest cake and they had one on the menu. Picture for Tim and Susan, dessert aficionados. If they had a fraternity it would be Phin Nu Pi.



Not a traditional Black Forest cake but it was good anyway. Had to head back to the Vaquero to pack up after that.

[802Mike]

You must've missed the Kissing Booth?

[Martin_D]

I'm enjoying this ride report a lot , brings back nice memories .
Thanks for taking the time Wes !

[Capnrip]

Thanks Martin

[Capnrip]

We said our goodbyes Thursday night and hit the road early Friday morning. Friday was a driving day, leaving Bandera trying to make Memphis. We were fortunate enough to hit traffic in both Austin and Dallas and about 13 hours later we hit West Memphis, Arkansas. On our way back the bluebonnets were gorgeous, they had a good rain a few days earlier and it must have been just what the doctor ordered. We planned an extra day so we could hit the Muscle Shoals recording studio that was started by the Swampers, now a museum. There's an excellent documentary on Muscle Shoals and how a small town in Alabama came to play such a prominent role in the music industry. Cliff notes version, the Swampers was a group of studio musicians that backed up some of the biggest names in music, to include, Cher, Bob Seger, Paul Simon. Others came down just to record, including the Rolling Stones. It's a small building that started life as a casket showroom. Some pictures from the restored studio.





The decorations on the wall with the 4 circles in them were Styrofoam. The cinder block walls provided too harsh a sound so they put various things in to dampen it. They were packing from a box of electric meters they found on the side of the road.

In the lower right hand corner of this picture you see a little bathroom. Keith Richards locked himself in there to finish working out the music to "Wild Horses". They were on break from a tour and went up to Muscle Shoals to record some stuff which turned out to be Wild Horses, Brown Sugar and You Gotta Move. Muscle Shoals didn't get credited on the Sticky Fingers album as the Stones only had work permits to perform in the US, not to record or do other work.



It was a short but very informative tour and if you haven't seen it I highly recommend the documentary about how Rick Hall got the music industry to Muscle Shoals. From there it was a couple of hours to the Barber Motorcycle Museum, and when you're that close you just have to go. I'm covering some of the same ground as Mike here, but 100 people could cover Barber and not hit it all. I'd been here to do a track day 5 years ago and they had done some additions but hadn't put much in them yet. They fixed that. It's really sensory overload to go to Barber, you can't imagine that many motorcycles, Lotus cars and old outboards in one place. Here's a few pics. First one for Curt.


When I went before I saw some old outboards on the wall in the basement. This time they had them on display ringing one of the lower floors. Not sure how many there were but it must have been close to a hundred. Here's a few.


Some more bikes



One for Martin and Eric


And lastly a sad looking little Lotus car. Was actually a beautiful vehicle, a barn find that they restored at Barber.



Other than a drive home from Cleveland, Tennessee the next day, that was the trip, which was a good one. Great to see all the rally goers and THCR lived up to and exceed expectations. The Vaquero and Bandera is a great place for this rally. See y'all at BRPR!

[EricM]

[Capnrip]

I would so love to ride that thing Eric. I'd probably hit a tree but I'd give it a shot.

[Martin_D]

You think I could ride that thing in the sand ???
I hate snow so much ...

[McFly]

Great write up Wes & thanks for the MG pic! It was good to have you & Elizabeth join us in Bandera & hope to see you two down the road.

[955i]

Wes . . . a man of many talents.


Thanks, Wes for this ride report. Cathy and I had a great time with you guys in Bandera, and enjoyed this write-up very much.
Tyson