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Anniversary Celebration Ride & A Ride to Remember

voyagerrider

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Location
Burleson, TX
First Name
Marty
Last Name
Johnston
I am the luckiest guy around. I married a awesome, wonderful lady 27 years ago. Our anniversary will be on July the 3rd. I asked her a while back what she wanted to do this year to celebrate. Her answer was to go to Fredericksburg to camp and ride. What a awesome deal! Of course our idea of camping maybe different from yours, we have a Bunkhouse camper we pull behind the Voyager. Complete with a 5000 BTU A/C unit. No hot sleeping quarters for us old folks.

Now to the remember part of the ride now that I have explained the Anniversary part. We lived in Austin from 1990 to 1998. We bought our 1992 Goldwing GL1500I in 1993 and Kathy bought her first bike in 1994. So the Hill Country in and around Fredericksburg is some of our old haunts and riding areas. So we plan on re-riding some of those roads over the next few days.

Here is the route we will be riding on the way down.

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Some pictures along the way to Hico.

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Of course we had to make a stop here for breakfast.

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Some Vette’s parked out front.

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Our breakfast.

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I am trying something new with camera and taking pictures while rolling down the road.I have camera on a lanyard around my neck rather than on the handle bar mount. Most of the time the pictures come out good, but sometimes they don’t. Here are some of my mistakes.

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I snapped this of Kathy over my shoulder as we rode along.

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She took this one of me.

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We made a few other stops along the way for pictures of a few courthouses and to grab a couple geo-caches.

Lampasas for the Lampasas County courthouse.

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On to Burnet for this picture of the Burnet County courthouse.

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Kathy got this picture of me taking a picture.

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The Air Museum at the Burnet Airport.

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Crossing the lake at Marble Falls.

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We got this picture of the Blanco County courthouse in Johnson City.

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We made pretty good time and arrived at the KOA campground just outside Fredericksburg about 4:00PM. We got camp setup pretty quick and made a run to Wally World for some provisions for next few days. The priority with getting camp setup was to get the A/C going. Here are some pics of our camp I made the next morning.

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Our dinner for this evening, Foil Burgers, is what my grandmother called them. A beef patty with some veggies wrapped in foil. Either put in fire or on the grill for about 45 minutes.

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Here is a pic of our camp at night that Kathy took.

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Accomplishments today:
pictures of 3 courthouses—Lampasas, Burnet, & Blanco
geo-caches in 2 counties—Lampasas, Burnet
214 miles to get here.
Stay tuned, more to come.

Marty
 
Curious about the trailer set up. I assume the 1st set of wheels is to haul the A/C and lessen the tongue weight on the m/c. Any storage in the trailer portion or is just a camper?
 
Curious about the trailer set up. I assume the 1st set of wheels is to haul the A/C and lessen the tongue weight on the m/c. Any storage in the trailer portion or is just a camper?

The first set of wheels is called a "dolly" and does just as you say. It takes all of the tongue weight. I had it custom built to just have a flat platform centered over the axle to carry whatever I wanted. In this case it is the A/C, but could be another ice chest or just a storage box.
The camper trailer has about 24 cu.ft of storage in bottom or "basement" as we call it. The bedding and canvas are on top under the black cover.

Marty
 
One heck of a trip, Marty! :clap: I like the camp set-up with A/C too. ;-)
Thanks for sharing.
 
Cool! (literally, ;-))

Clearly you have a well set-up rig, but I didn't think tandem trailers were allowed. :scratch:
 
Cool! (literally, ;-))

Clearly you have a well set-up rig, but I didn't think tandem trailers were allowed. :scratch:

Lots of folks I know use similar setup to mine, and have for years. Never had any issues.
Marty
 
Day 2—July 3rd Our Anniversary

I am up at 5:30 to start the coffee. I sit doing my morning devotion listening to the birds singing that were up before me. I enjoy the solitude in the early morning and it allows me to start my day off right. As it starts to get light I see these guys in the field next to the KOA.

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Kathy gets up around 7 am and we have a light breakfast.

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Our destination for today is one of favorite restaurants over in Driftwood called the “Salt Lick”, famous for BBQ. Here is a map of our route for today.

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As we ride east on 290 towards Johnson City we stop at this historic site and find a geo-cache that is hidden there.

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I thought this image Kathy got trying to take a picture of the inside with the bikes reflected was really neat.

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We ride on a bit further and encounter this just outside Johnson City and there is another geo-cache hidden here that we find.

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A Khrome Kow with a Kowasaki
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Other sculptures.

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The sign tells us that the Sculpture Ranch is open and 5 miles up this little county road so off we go. We are treated to views like this along the way.

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Kathy gets me from behind.

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When we get to the entrance to ranch we found it was gravel road with some pretty good rocks. I am game for it, but Kathy is not so we turn around to go back to 290. The views alone we had were worth the ride. But we have decided to come and try it again either in the truck or on more appropriate bikes for gravel.

Our lunch destination in Driftwood.

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One of their beautiful feathered friends around the place.

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There is a line as usual, but the wait is shorter than we were told. Our lunch brisket, sausage, & pork ribs served “family style” (all you can eat).

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After leaving the Salt Lick we ride over to Wimberly and stop at one of the shops for delicious Blue Bell peach Vanilla ice cream. Sorry I didn’t take any pictures. Then we off for the Devil’s Backbone. I had every intention of stopping at the world famous Devil’s Backbone Tavern. It came up faster than I anticipated and I was going to fast to turn in. We did stop at the over look for these views.

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Kathy got this picture while I was standing up on the picnic table

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We also found a geo-cache that was placed at the over look and new kind of hide we trying out called a “letterbox”. Letterboxing is similar to geo-caching except you don’t need a GPS. I had found a site on-line with the “Devil’s Backbone Microbox”. It gave exact directions as to where the container was. You need some sort of rubber ink stamp, a ink pad, and a notebook. There is log in the container that you stamp with yours, and a stamp that you use to stamp your pad. Then you sign an date the log in the container. We looked for a stamp with a motorcycle on it, but no luck. We found one with 2 acorns, so we called ourselves the “2 Nutz”. Here is picture of the stamp from the letterbox.

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Here is a picture of our stamp.

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We stopped in Blanco for a hydration break, and I dropped the camera getting back on the bike. This is from trying it to see if it still worked.

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On the way back to KOA in Fredericksburg we rode through Luckenbach, but there wasn’t much going on so we didn’t stop. We did find a neat little road called Grapetown Road and followed it for several miles before coming back to 1376 just south on the campground. One thing we did notice is there a lot more vineyards in this are than we remembered. It seems as if I read something about Texas vineyards and wineries really having a growth in the last few years. Kathy had this surprise waiting for her when we got back to camp.

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I had ordered these to be delivered months ago. The folks at the KOA brought them down and put in the camper with the A/C going.
Our dinner was the leftover BBQ from the Salt Lick.

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Finally about 9 we give fighting with the “gnats” that were bugging us, went for the shower, and then retired to the air-conditioned comfort of our sleeping quarters to read for a while.

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Accomplishments today:
Made one wife very happy
Had some great BBQ
4 geo-caches in 4 different counties
Covered 130 miles on some awesome roads.

Still more to come.

Marty
 
Day 3—July 4th A Hot Ride & Some Historical Fireworks

This plans to be a short riding day for us, probably less than 100 miles. We plan seeing the Admiral Nimitz Museum and some other stuff in Fredericksburg. Here is the route we will be riding today.

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Here are some pictures of some of the Willow City Loop.

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After we got back on 16 north of Fredericksburg we realized we had missed the really scenic part of the Loop by making a wrong turn at Willow City. We should have gone straight instead of turning left. We decided to save that for another ride. We rode on to Enchanted Rock.

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There were lots of folks there on this day. Kathy and I had visited here in 1993 and climbed the Rock all the way to the top. We hiked down into the Saddle between Enchanted Rock and Little Rock to the lake on the back side. Then around Little Rock back to parking area. We had no desire to climb the rock today in this heat. After leaving Enchanted Rock we continued south on 965 to Fredericksburg. I took these pics along the way.

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We grabbed this picture of the backside of the Gillespie County Courthouse in Fredericksburg. There was too much traffic to try to park in front.

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After riding around the block several times we finally found a parking place behind the Admiral Nimitz Museum. This was out front.

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Over all I was rather disappointed in the museum. They are making renovations and part of it will not be opened again until December 7th. The high was we stopped to watch a movie about a group called Bentprop who search out the wreckage of downed aircraft from WWII in the Pacific. With possibility of recovery of remains of the missing airmen to be able to give families some closure. They been successful in doing this in many cases. I had a tough time when they were doing Memorials for these guys when were folding the flag to give to the families. Here is there website http://www.bentprop.org/ After went down the street to a place called Silver Creek to have this for lunch.

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Then we headed a few blocks down the street from where the bikes were to the Museum of the Pacific War for a reenactment using actual WWII combat weapons was to be staged.

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They had demonstration of weapons used in WWII. Some of the weapons that were shown were the BAR, Thompson sub-machine gun, 50 calibers and others. They even had a working flame thrower.

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What was amazing to me was about half of the participants looked like high school kids. We were told that they just wanted to learn what it was like for our soldiers during WWII. This was a great presentation and well worth the $5 to see it.
We even saw the original WWII PT boat that saw service in the Mediterranean, but it was in such a small and dark that the pics did not come out.
We saw the Avenger fighter bomber.

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We came back to camp and one of our camp special dinners. It consisted of Beef Ramen Noodles, Progresso Vegetable Rice soup, and some beef patties we had left over from the other night.

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We visited with some folks from Ohio who was on bikes going to Women on Wheels Rally in Kerrville. They were camped next to us for the night.
Rode close to 100 miles (very short day)
Got 1 courthouse picture—Gillespie County
Met some new folks – Van and Kathy

Keep tuned in still more to come.

Marty
 
Hi Marty,
Absolutely Great write up and even better photos.
You and The Wife had a Special Anniversary.
Thank you for sharing.
Brent
 
Is the P-38 White Lightning back at the Burnett Air Museum? It was there when I took my kids there in 2001. It had an in-flight fire and put down in a cotton field in Louisiana sometime after that.

That was an interesting trip for us. We flew down in the Piper Tri-Pacer I owned part of and had a fabric separation at the top of the windscreen on the way back. I had to put it down in a cow pasture. It was a great landing, especially since we would have died if the billowing fabric had blanked out the tail. We hitchhiked into the Granbury airport and a mechanic took me back out there with a ladder and a roll of duct tape. We taped it back down, I took off and flew to Granbury where I made a terrible landing. But it didn't bend anything. Left the plane there for repairs.
 
Is the P-38 White Lightning back at the Burnett Air Museum? It was there when I took my kids there in 2001. It had an in-flight fire and put down in a cotton field in Louisiana sometime after that.

You know during the time we lived in Austin and going to Burnett all the time I never went to the Air Museum. But you say 2001, we had already moved back to FTW in 1998. Sometime when we are down we should really visit the place.:ponder::ponder::ponder:
We did visit the Silent Wings Museum (WWII Gliders) over in Terrell once. I thought it was pretty cool. It was over at the airport, but it closed in 2001 & moved to Lubbock.
Marty
 
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I must apologize to everyone for not continuing with this ride report that I started over two months ago. I simply got busy and put it on the back burner and then forgot. I will try to get finished now.

Day 4—July 5th Ride for Courthouses
We stared off a bit earlier than we have been the last few days. We rolled at about 7:30AM. Our goal today is to get courthouse pictures in Travis, Bastrop, Hays and Comal counties. The temp was still fairly cool for our ride into Austin. That was one of the reasons to leave early. The other was to beat the Austin traffic. We had planned on rolling at 6:30AM, but we didn’t make that. Partly due to fact I over slept and other due to fact we were talking to our new friends from Ohio, Van and Kathy, that were camped next to us for one night.
This is the route we took today as you can see we added Boerne on to it getting Kendall County courthouse.
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As we ride into Austin on 290 I am reminded of the time when lived there from 1990 to 1998. We had gotten back into motorcycling while living there when I bought a 1992 Goldwing GL1500I with less than 10K on clock. The day we were buying the bike from Woods Honda, when they were still on Lamar, we meet a guy with a club called the Austin Road Riders Association. We went on our first ride with them the following Sunday and our adventure began again in 1993. Kathy and I rode together for the first year when Kathy bought her first bike a Honda 450 Rebel in 1994. We proceeded to ride all over the Hill Country and for that matter Texas with that group and by ourselves for the next years. We moved back to Ft. Worth the end of 1998 but that is another story. Anyway as we ride I asked Kathy how many times we made that ride from Austin on 290 through Johnson City to Marble Falls and on to Burnet? The conclusion we came to was at least once a month. The Austin Road Riders put on a small rally of a 1,000+ back then called the Texas Hill Country Tour. I had become one of the tour chairman (the guy in charge) after a couple of years. We made regular rides to the Hill Country to plan for the rally. Sometime we made more than one trip a month, sometimes more than once a week. We broke it up by taking different routes but all usually started in the Oak Hill (SW Austin) area.
Our first stop today.
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Travis County courthouse
Our second stop
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Bastrop County courthouse
We made the courthouse square in San Marcos by noon.
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Now usually I will tell you guys if we find a good place to eat on the road. But, I cannot recommend “Café on the Square” on the courthouse square in San Marcos. The food was good, we both had Club Sandwich but the service was terrible. We waited for 20 minutes just for someone to take our order, we had been given drinks within the first 5 minutes or we would have already been gone. It took over 40 minutes to get our food out. Finally I told the waitress that if our food wasn’t out in 5 minutes we were leaving. It came out 2 minutes later. I do not recommend this place.
We ride on to New Braunfels to take this picture of the Comal County courthouse.
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We stopped for a hydration break down the road and decided to ride on to Boerne for the Kendall County courthouse.
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We made another hydration break at the historic Sisterdale Bar. That’s what the sign says.
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We also snapped these pics there.
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I put my camera way after leaving Boerne and regretting it. Leaving Boerne on FM 474 and coming into Sisterdale on FM 473 was an awesome ride.
We made it back to camp and got this pic of Kathy cooling off.
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Here’s the one she took of me.
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After dinner we made some preparation for breaking camp in the morning to head home. After getting a shower we were in bed reading by 9:30PM. Early for us and finally lights out about 10:15PM.
 
Day 5—July 6 “The Ride Home”
I am up this morning by 5:30AM to do my morning devotion and write in the journal. I sit here listening to the birds singing, reading God’s Word and drinking coffee contemplating our last few days. The time together has been good for both of us. It has been a long time since we went off like this. Oh, we have taken trips where it was just the two of us, but we stayed in motels. We had the diversion that came with them such as the TV, internet and other amenities. Yes, we still have our A/C and cell phones along with the WiFi the campgrounds had but we are too far way from office for it to work properly. Neither on of us has missed the TV, and we haven’t gotten any calls on the cell phones. Kathy received one text message from our granddaughter. Oh yes, I did get a couple of calls on a callout at work, but I told them my ETA would be too great since I was over 200 miles away. The price of not have a home phone anymore, just cell phones. We both enjoy this immensely and I think we are both coming away with our batteries recharged. Now don’t get me wrong I will enjoy sleeping in our own bed at home and enjoy having to make a 50 yard trek to the restroom in the middle of the night… but this chapter in our lives has to come to an end… We hope to be packed and on the road by 8:30AM, we will see if we make it. The story is not finished yet.

We had camp broken and everything packed to roll down the road by 8:30. But it was starting to rain. So I put the camera away, and we took the most direct route back to Burleson. The route we followed was 290 to Johnson City then 281 north to Hico. We rode 220 north to 67 then into Cleburne then on into Burleson. We stopped at the Country Kitchen in Lampasas to have this for lunch.
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You may ask how we transported Kathy’s anniversary flowers home? Here ‘s where they rode in my left pannier.
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Here’s what they looked like when we got home. They were still in pretty good shape.
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It was a fun trip but we were glad to be home. Bud was glad to see us too!
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Wow....GREAT trip you guys had! LOVE the sleeping arrangements too! Thanks for taking us along for the ride!
 
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