Tuesday, February 2, 2010

BBFO'10 - Day 5

No matter how long the trip is, it's always sort of a downer on the last day of the trip. This morning was no exception. When I woke up I knew that tomorrow I wouldn't be starting my day on the bike. While I was loading my bike, I realized that tomorrow I wouldn't be getting the day's clothes out of compression bags. And at breakfast I realized I wouldn't be eating with the same group of people tomorrow morning.

Now there was one great thing about this morning. My bike started with just the power of it's own battery. There was no need for a jump from another motorcycle. Hoooray!!! It's amazing what a 15 to 20 degrees rise in the temperature can do for my bike. None the less, I'm ordering an Odyssey battery for the bike today. Doing a google search on "r1200gs odyssey battery" shows a pictorial of someone fitting one of those into the GS. It should be fun.

We stayed at the Sorrels Inn in Rocksprings last night and there was a restaurant on the premises so that's where we had dinner last night and breakfast this morning.  This mom & pop restaurant was like most places west of San Antonio, the meals for a table don't come out all at once. They come out in the order the cook does them. And today my bacon, egg and cheese sandwich was the last thing out, well except my hash browns which the cook had forgotten all together.

After breakfast we finished loading the bikes and took off. The plan was to ride down Hwy 55 to Uvalde, then follow Hwy 90 through San Antonio. And that's what we did. It was foggy until we got down to Uvalde and then just overcast and damp the rest of the day. We stopped at the same rest area that we stopped at on Friday, then it was back on the bikes through San Antonio. Our one and only gas stop of the day was in Seguin. When it was time to go, Randy, Dan and Doug weren't quite ready so they said they would catch up with us. So Fred, John and I took off on I-10 heading east.

When we got to FM 2438 we turned south to get down to Hwy 90 Alternate and then continued east. A few miles down the road Fred came on the radio saying something was wrong with his mirror and that he was going to pull over and tighten it up. Then he told John and I to keep going and he would catch up.  Well I kept going and John stopped. That's the last I saw of the group for the day.

I continued on down the road to Eagle Lake. Just past town, there was an accident that had traffic blocked in both directions so I back tracked and took 3013 south toward Wharton.  Then I turned left onto FM 1161 toward Hungerford to cut off a few miles. Then it was the home stretch up Hwy 59 into Sugar Land. From the time I left Eagle Lake until I got home it was raining and in the low 60's.  So the trip started and ended the same way, in the rain and warm for this time of the year.

Total mileage for today was 357 miles ridden over 8 hours time.  The whole trip had an accumulated total of 1,814 miles. Problems with the GS included the weak battery and the throttle lock not working correctly. But one thing that worked very well on this trip was the readjusted seat from RDL. This is the first long trip I've used it on since they redid it this fall and I have to say I'm very pleased with the changes.

Right now there aren't any big trips planned until May, but that doesn't mean Reagan and I won't try to sneak away to the hill country or something this spring.

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