Friday Richard and I got up early, had breakfast, and got on the highway to Dallas. We had more than 600 miles to cover, so we kept up the pace. We had some rain along the way, but once we reached Texas the skies cleared and it started to get hot. Richard’s waterproof boots stopped rejecting the water, so at lunch he tried drying them and changed his socks.

Somewhere along I-20, where there were no trees, a bird bombed me. It’s hard to see in the photo above my left eye, but from inside the helmet it was yucky.

We arrived at john and Nikki’s by 6 pm having covered 650 miles in 12 hours. After dinner we spent a few hours trying to fix the air system on Richard’s bike. The rear shocks on his bike are air-adjustable. There’s an elaborate system with a compressor, solenoid valve, and receiver tank along with switches, wires, and tubing. We weren’t able to fix the leak, but made the bike rideable. Huge thanks go to John for having a well-equipped workshop and lots of parts. Here are John and Richard preparing to do the repairs.

Saturday John, Richard and I got a very early start and met two friends, Carol and Scott. On I-20, on the way to pick up Scott, Richard inadvertently knocked his phone off the bike. He stopped to retrieve the smashed remnants. In the process we got separated. Since Richard didn’t have an working phone, we couldn’t reach him. He did have an I-Pod with cell service, so he was able to text us. We eventually found him and continued our ride.

We weren’t 25 miles down the road when I got bombed again. This was a good shot. Luckily it didn’t hit me.

We had to put on and take off the rain gear a couple of times.

We chose a route that had very few interstate miles. We rode US-67 all the way to Alpine, TX, then down TX-118 to Terlingua. We arrived about 7:30 pm and checked in. When I opened the door to our room, I could see it hadn’t been made up. The owner was very apologetic and put us in another room. That one was worst than the first, so they put us back in the first room after they made it up. this is the same room Drew and I were in last year.

In the mean time we enjoyed a beer on the upper deck of the restaurant. By the time we had showered it was a little too dark for pictures on the deck, but we had a good time catching up with friends. There were about 20 around the table.

It had been a long day – 13-/12 hours and more than 600 miles. By the end of dinner I was ready for bed and had no trouble falling asleep.