Hill Country ride 2018

Hey there, so its about to get crazy busy so I thought i'd post now to get one in this week. Last Friday, Todd and i hosted a ride to one of our fave places in Texas with some good friends and new friends.
Todd has made some friends in his work industry that are riders and he rode to Georgia back in July and went on long ride with them. Theres a big work convention that takes place every year and this year it happened to be in Dallas. It changes every year. So since the guys were going to be in town , they also rented bikes and extended their stay to go with us including a couple that live near us and our very good friends of ours.  So there were only 6 of us total - 4 bikes which is a nice small group that is manageable.
We went on the same ride last April with a much larger group and we had so much fun but its hard to organize large groups on bikes- with gas breaks, eating , etc to be on same schedule.
We ride all back roads and stopped at one of our regular stops when we're in that neck of the woods for some awesome BBQ!  We also happen to come across a very very long caravan of army trucks, Humvees, etc heading to the border. In fact, it was so big, they also went long way on back roads because it would be a huge media storm if they went main highway. Todd asked them on one stop if they were heading to the border and one soldier replied he wasn't at liberty to confirm but he didn't deny. Then sure enough, it ended up on the news later that night that Trump had released 1000's of troops to secure the borders.
We HAVE to include a stop to Luckenbach when we're in town . Its soooo fun and i love the vibe of being there. Live music, beer and wine, fun atmosphere.
I have tons and tons of pictures so this may have to be in a few separate posts.
I really enjoyed the ride and it was perfect weather! Id much rather wear a jacket any day then ride in the hot hot sun.
I flew into St Louis last night and i'll be here for the next 9 days to support the conversion here. ( remember i just did a conversion support back in August in Salt Lake).  This is the last one for the year and for the company until we tackle our sister side in Canada.
So here is picture overload:

Salt Lick in Driftwood, TX

An old phone booth

Have a great day and i'll try to post again soon.

Riding the Hill Country

This past weekend I joined my husband on a weekend Harley ride with a group of friends. Our riding group goes to the Hill Country usually every spring.  This ride was a special ride though because our mechanic Tony,who has serviced all our bikes for years was coming along. He drives the most gorgeous Indian bike.  Tony has Stage 4 cancer and stopped taking Chemo a few weeks ago. This will most likely be his last large ride far distance.   There was a larger group that left early Friday morning but Todd had a Dr’s appointment that we couldn’t reschedule and he had a friend that was flying in from Atlanta and renting a bike so we told the group that we would catch up with them later that evening.  I dropped off the dogs at their overnight doggy daycare and then as soon as I got home, we jumped on the bike and rode to Dallas for the Dr appt.  Afterwards, we ate breakfast at the clinic cafeteria which was actually really good.  Todd’s friend Chris was landing at the airport soon and then took an Uber over to the Bike rental place. That’s where we met up with him.   From there, we rode over to our friend Coby’s house where he was joining us.  We got a really late start because Coby wasn’t ready. He never is and its so frustrating!! He had Rangers tickets for that weekend so he wanted to go to the box office and exchange them for another week and game. Fortunately the stadiums were very close to where he lived. While he was in line and we were parked, he discovered he left his phone at home.  So then Todd got in line for him while he drove him to get his phone and back.  That took close to an hour to get all that done.   Finally we were on our way to Hill Country.

We rode a few hours and then stopped for lunch around 2:00 in a town called Hico.   While we were waiting on our meal, my stepmom Deb called and said that Daddy’s other best friend Doc had passed away that morning.  I was so shocked and sad!  One of the first things that I thought was WOW, Daddy has his 2 very best friends with him now.  I know I posted about his friend Billy who passed suddenly last July.  Doc had been sick with a blood disease and had not been feeling well lately.  I know he suffered from pain at times.  The funeral is today in Austin but I am not there because I’ve taken too much time off work as it is. 

We arrived at our motel in Kerrville around 6:30 pm that night.  All together we rode around 300 miles that day and of course it was all back roads.  We dropped off our bags and got checked into our room and then got back on the back to meet our other group for dinner.  We met at a Mexican restaurant that had an hour wait. Funny, our friends saved us seats but then another group that happened to know our friends , saw them and sat in our chairs and they didn’t have the heart to tell them to leave.  SOOOO, we had to sit in the bar and have a drink while a table came open. Once we were seated, our friends in big group were leaving. HAHA!  We were late for everything that day.  Oh well!

Saturday morning, all of us ( I think there were 10 bikes total) started our first part of the day together.  There is a route to take that covers stretches of 3 different highways called The Three Sisters.  They’re very narrow and winding  and twisty twirly rodes and some steep uphill and downhill climbs.   They’re so fun and obviously a great riding destination . In fact there were lots of riding clubs not just bikes. We saw a group of Porsches and Corvettes riding the roads too.    There is a bar and grill in the middle where all the highways meet and we stopped there to have a snack and a drink.  We rode 2 of the sisters before we stopped.  Much of the group wanted to go to some other bars that were along the way but my group wanted to ride the last sister to just be able to say that we did.  Hindsight, the last highway was the worst and really not worth the effort but Hey we know now!  Another guy in the group wanted to ride with us so now we had 4 bikes in our group- Todd, Chris, Coby and now Bryan.   So the 5 of us turned right on the last highway while the rest of the group went their way.   After we finished the last highway we all agreed that we wanted to go to Luckenbach and hang out there for a while. I have been a few times but never with Todd.  They have live music and its just so relaxed and fun atmosphere. It was also 90 minutes in opposite direction but we wanted to keep riding.  We actually came across another part of a highway that was just as fun and winding and twisty as the 3 sisters. I said it must be the ugly stepsister because it was better than the last one.  Along the way, Bryan needed to air up his back tire and as we were wrapping up , Todd realized that our front tire was low  so we aired up too. I think we ended up being at that stop for almost 45 minutes.   Then Bryan realized his back light bulb was out so we had to stop at auto store and he changed that out in the parking lot.  THEN we started our ride to Luckenbach.  Our plan was to go there , have a quick drink and then catch up with our group again and have dinner together. Nope. Once again, we are so behind and we told our group we couldn’t make it to dinner.  When we got to Luckenbach, there was a wedding going on there.  There was one guy that didn’t tell us to leave but said he wasn’t sure how much longer we could stay because the family bought out the whole place for the night.  I bought a tshirt and we all stayed for one beer and then rode into Fredericksburg for dinner.  Fredericksburg will be its own post soon. Its one of my favorite places!! So much history and cute little shops. It’s a German town so we ate at yummy place and had pork schnitzel.    It was close to 9 pm I think before we headed back to hotel which took a little shy of 2 hours.   Sadly we didn’t get to see the rest of our group again that night.  We had to get back to Dallas pretty quickly because Chris still had to return the bike and uber to the airport to catch his plane.  We left at 7:30 am ( Coby, Chris, and Todd and i) and the other crew weren’t leaving until 9:30.   We got to see a few of the them when we were having breakfast in lobby so we got to say goodbye.

This is Wesley , Tony and Todd. Wesley and Todd are wearing Traditions tshirts which was Tony's shop. He closed it 2 weeks ago. 

Bobbie, me and Sherry

Coby, Chris, me

It was so much fun and I am really glad I went.   Friday night I was hurting pretty bad and regretting my decision because of all the squishing and big bumps and such. I felt bruised and im still a little swollen from surgery 2 weeks ago.  I was SUPPOSED to be a vendor at my junk show I do every 6 months but I’m not supposed lift anything heavy and I do that all weekend when I have my show.  It was nice to ride with Todd and spend time on the bike with our friends.  No regrets!  Life is short and you got to get out of the house.    I’ll post later on some of the things and places I saw along the way.  

" H" is for HOLLIween, Hair, Hill Country and Harleys

There are just too many choices to write about with the letter H right now so I chose more than one.
Right now in Dallas its been overcast with the promise of rain for the last few days. Its very humid and my dry frizzy hair has been HUGE!! My husband and my coworker have both commented how big it is this week. haha! I have countless of hair products in my bathroom that all claim to tame the frizz and they all are liars. Not one of them has been able to control the craziness. I've been wearing it up in a clip or in a braid these days.
If you are fans of the TV show Friends- I resemble Monica when she was in Mexico.

Halloween is my favorite holiday. Todd and I host a HOLLIween annual party every year the weekend before Halloween. I go all out! I have so much and I'm already thinking about this years' theme and decorations. It will be here before you know it! My friends love it and makes me happy that they look forward to it and come dressed in costumes.   Here are a few pics from past parties:

I've been a biker chick since I was a toddler. Literally.  When I was born, my dad had a bike, my grandfather, and both uncles all had bikes. My parents didn't have a car and so my grandparents had to bring me home from the hospital because they had a car.  I got my first helmet when I was four and my leather jacket soon after. My grandfather Poppy was very active in a few organizations and was officer in a few. We spent most of our vacations attending bike rallies.  I bought my own Harley 12 years ago.  I since sold that one and I bought my Dad's from him a few years ago when his health was really bad and we weren't sure he was going to have the transplant.  My husband has owned his own share of Harleys and I love that we have that in common.  I actually helped him study for his motorcycle license back when we were just friends.   This weekend we were supposed to go on a nice long bike ride with a group of friends ( around 12 of us) and ride to Hill Country.  We've had it planned for a few months and I requested Friday off for vacation. Unfortunately Mother Nature didn't care that we had this planned.  There's 80% chance of rain all weekend long.  The ride got cancelled yesterday.


Todd and I still really need to get away and so we are keeping our hotel reservations and driving down in our car. There are several wineries in that area and cute shops and I'm still looking forward to getting away. Hill Country is a few hours south of Dallas and its getting to be kinda touristy.  It has rolling hills and trees and clear lakes and its beautiful. Right now our Texas bluebonnets are in bloom and the Indian Paintbrushes and the highways are just gorgeous.  I am so excited to have a weekend with my honey and enjoying the scenery. Wished it was on the bike but we can go again.


So there you have it on my letter H today.  Today is my Friday so I am a Happy girl!