SaddleSore1000 - 6/11/2005
Erin and I saw a Saddle Sore taking place in Plano and decided to rally my brother up for this run to get us out of town for a weekend. So we saddled up our bags on the Valkyrie and my brother on his Virago and we headed out for our Iron Butts to see what this is all about. Now going through West Texas in June doesn't sound like a great idea, and we didn't expect to see much other than sand and tumbleweed, but you will see from the following pictures that there is some great things to see out there. Van Horn is almost to El Paso in the far most tip of west Texas.
There's a look at the start and finish, straight across I-20 to I-10 and back. Erin and I are riding on the new Ultimate Seats we bought just a week before. We got a short run in the previous Saturday for about 350 miles. Usually it takes about 500 miles or so to break in a new seat, and I can speak from experience, that after 500 miles on this trip, it was broke in...my butt finally conformed to the shape of the new seat. Erin has no complaints about the back seat, and I wonder if there is really an actual seat one could be comfortable on all day....
We left Plano Honda after meeting up with Bill at 6:a.m. That was the check out time deadline. We were the last ones there and we heard some left at 5:30 a.m. We didn't get the camera out of the bag to start and missed some great shots of the sunrise and Dallas skyline, Ft Worth, and the rolling hills just west of Ft Worth. Our first stop was Ranger Tx, about 135 miles out which is about my brother's Virago max distance. Having the new Interstate tank on, I can do about 210 miles per tank. Going up Ranger hill. we were passing a semi to its left and he suddenly veered into our lane, there was no reason for it. I laid into the airhorns and hit the brakes so my brother coule pull out of it. We had been riding side by side. After this, we no longer passed trucks side by side. I guess the driver was falling asleep, it was about 8a.m. Here we are at the first gas up in Ranger. We were talking to a couple local officials here. They were gassing up too...on coffee and donuts!
A Roaring Ranger Museum across the street. Wonder what's in there? Next time perhaps.
Neat old structure.
Scenery is flattening out now....
But there's some more hills....still have tress at the point.
Rolling hills all over west of Ranger....
Wow....check out all the windmills. It is getting very blustery on the road and I guess it is usually that way in these parts judging by all these windmills.
A closer look at some, Erin zoomed in as we approached them.
And another hill with more windmills....thee things have GOT to be pumping out some Megawatts!
My brother Dave is still enjoying the ride at this point!
Erin gets a shot of all three of us off of my helmet!!
And another shot of all three of us!! It is easy to see far at this point.
Another range of hills coming up.
Splotchy coverage of brush on this hill. Trees are getting scarce.
Coming up on Midland we start hitting refineries. Midland and Odessa are old oil driven cities out in the middle of nowhere!!
Hey!! I never knew Midland had buildings! Not what I had pictured at all!!
More refineries.
Another angle as we come past it.
Now that we are past Midland and Odessa, I guess we are in the middle of nowhere! Look how flat it is out here! Guess they don't need weathermen, they can see whats coming!
HELLOOooo!!!
Starting to look like berms at the beach!!
Cool, someone took time to decorate the overpass!! An American
flag was on the
left but it came up so fast Erin couldn't get the camera ready.
Looks like they painted rocks....
Cruising along it is steaming hot out here but it is a dry
heat. Very hot though.
We see a mountain range in the far distance. Maybe it will offer some shade and
cooler air!!
