Thanks for the great photos and write up, Tim. I don't have much more to add.
We had a great turnout of various bikes from all over north Texas. Some rode the highways, and some rode the backroads. The Country Store was a real neat experience; I heard many TWT'ers, myself included, comment that they will be back. The food was good, the people friendly and the riding, except for the heat, was fantastic.
I had mapped out a route to Country Store avoiding highways. I had a great ride, hardly any traffic, and beautiful scenery.
On one of the County Roads, I turned the corner and I was face-to-face with hundreds of bicycles coming at me. I kept to the far right, but some of the riders seemed to "own the road" and rode taking up most of the two-lane road.
As I rode on, the scenery got very hilly, and pleasing. As I turned one corner, a lake, dam bridge and lovely pastures spread out before me.
Except for a couple of missed turns, U-turns and backtracks, I made it to the Country Store. We had a great group arrive and the food was excellent.
After lunch, a few riders decided to join me on my planned route back home. I mapped out a route to check out the best, most interesting roads I could find. Two-lane, gravel, dirt, water crossings. Unfortunately, my riding/navigation and we missed a turn and rode a long ways before being able to turn around.
Once we checked the other's GPS's, we backtracked and found my intended roads. Most were just two-lane, but we did get into some cool water crossings (dry) and cool bridges. At one point, some of our group decided to leave the ride; it was getting hot and gnarly riding for a big bike. My XL250R performed excellently.
I clocked 152 miles driveway to driveway but had a great time. We need to do this again!!