You northerners....

[DAVINCI]

Wow..whew..thanks, Greg. When i did the search yesterday, his member name was not there. sorry.

[trbig]

Headed out of S. Padre this morning and ambled my way north to Corpus Christi. Took the XJ on a really short ferry ride, then northward a bit more. Staying the night in Austin, and will head home in the morning for my oldest son's birthday. I took several pics, but got to thinking that I probably should have put this in the ride report section. Sorry.

[crazy steve]

...I took several pics, but got to thinking that I probably should have put this in the ride report section. Sorry.

No problem..... done!

[Schming]

Thanxs for sharing Your ride with Us.
Glad You had a great, safe time.

RIP (Ride in Peace) Jeremy

[Joab]

Wow, reading your folks Ride Reports really makes me want to get the bike running and actually meet some of you folks in the future! Except for TC, I make him drive all the way to my town once a year instead

[trbig]

The proper ride report...

With several days in a row scheduled to be in the high 60's and low 70's, a huge wave of wanderlust hit me. I immediately called in sick to work from a severe case of Spring Fever, threw a few things into the new trunk I'd bought off of JC Whitney, and hit the road headed south to South Padre Island in extreme southern Texas. I got a bit of a late start, but ended up riding the rest of the day and into the night. I had a few sidetracks, as noted earlier, and called it a day about 140 miles short of my destination in a small town called Premont, Texas. Speed limits in this area were generally 70-75mph. Texas used to have a reduced speed limit at night, but seems to have taken them down now? I didn't see any on the this trip. I hated those, so that's a good thing.

The next morning, I headed out and saw the kind of stuff I'd been riding through for several hours, and realized it hadn't been too smart. One of those big Texas buck deer could have came out of nowhere and ended my trip in a hurry.









As I reached my southern point of travel and the road headed east towards the coast, there are many miles of palm trees lining the roads.









I finally reached the town of Port Isabel, which is on the mainland. Here is the bridge going to South Padre Island and the flashing sign telling you to watch for pelicans. I imagine that hitting a turkey sized bird at highway speeds would not be a good thing for a fairing or windshield.









The bridge...














When I pulled into town, I looked around for a cheap hotel. Motel 6 had the lowest advertised price, so that was home for the night. I paid the front desk and walked into the room to see the bed mounted on a table. Don't worry, it wasn't nearly as comfortable as it looked. Plus, every movement brought out lots of strange gastric-like noises to lull me to sleep.









The space-age pod shower that I barely fit in made up for all of that though..









After dumping all my stuff into the room and donning some swimming trunks and sandals, I rode out towards a public beach access. The main road runs through South Padre with the ocean on one side and the bay on the other. I don't know how well you can see it on these reduced pics, but on the bay side, kite surfing seemed to be quite popular. I didn't take the bike out onto the sand. Sand sticking to oil and grease is not a good thing for seals and bearings.









And finally to the beach that I'd come for.



















I ventured into the water about shin deep. I realized that to retain anything that looked like I had some sort of manhood, this was deep enough. February, even in the Gulf, was not swimming weather unless you are a member of the Polar Bear Club.

I headed back to town and changed into my riding clothes again. I'm sure the town had seen enough of my pasty white winter legs. I rode around through town a bit, playing tourist.



















I had looked online and found a place called Louie's that had a seafood buffet and was right on the water. It had an inside area, an outside covered area, and an outside open area to make everybody happy.









I chose a spot by the water away from everybody since I don't play well with others. It wasn't too hard though since the place seemed pretty dead outside. Most people dined inside. I ended up staying for @ 3 hours, enjoying the food, views, and margaritas.



















To be continued...

[trbig]

I waddled out of the restaurant like a pregnant duck, and back at the room, called it a day.

I decided to not stay another night, as planned, so I could take my time on the ride home in case of a detour I thought I needed to make. Checkout time was noon, so I got up early and headed north out of town. The sand dunes were constantly trying to reclaim the road and you had to watch for them. The road finally came to an end and I had plans to take a very long walk all alone on the beach.









Only... when I got to the end of the road, there was a car there. Out came a camera crew and a woman that was going to be posing nude on the beach. I laughed and said, "Looks like we both came out here to get away from everyone!" I took a pic of the gal and went on in the opposite direction so as not to APPEAR to be the drooling stalker/gawker guy, no matter how true it may be.









I told her to be careful, that d@$n sand gets into everything, and headed north up the secluded beach.

The sun was not cooperating, and this was the only time I actually saw it all day. I imagine it played heck with their photo-shoot also.









It was actually forecasted for rain and I don't remember ever walking against such a constant wind. I'm betting it was blowing close to 50mph, but it was weird since it was constant, not gusting.














The obligatory self-portrait off of a piece of driftwood... *Note to self.. pack a little better clothes for a beach trip if actually going to the beach.









I walked for a couple hours up the beach. It was a bit like walking on a stairmaster headed north into the wind, then the walk back south felt like I was being urged, "Jog a little, fat boy!"

With time like this to think about things, and life in general, you start to put things into perspective a bit. After visiting Jeremy's grave, it hit me again how that whether we die at 80 or 20, life is still pretty dang short. Much like these footprints...









... in just a short time, we're gone too.










SO... get out there and do the things you've been wanting to do! Quit putting them off, because like Jeremy, we never know when our number is up. *Stepping off my soapbox.




This pic doesn't show it very well, but the sand was whipping across the road, right into the back side of my windshield. There was about a gallon of sand built into a little sand dune on the dash of my fairing. I brushed off what I could, but I'd rode down there without a helmet, and had to ride several miles squinty-eyed to keep the swirling sand out of them.









First stop before the room was a car wash to get the salt/sand off the Bike. I then went back to the room and got cleaned up, and packed up. I stopped at a Subway to grab a sandwich before hitting the road and saw these on the way out. Pretty nice for February. Everything back in Oklahoma is still dead and brown.









The wind was really whipping on the ride across the bridge. On the way back to the mainland, you can see how choppy it was even in this shallow bay, though the pic don't really show it.









On the highway that goes east/west from S. Padre, I saw this place on the north side of the road. I saw it both on the way there and the way back, and still have no idea what it was. Maybe someone who knows the area will chime in? What I do know, is it looked neat and the gorilla they have in the back is freaking HUGE!! That's a backhoe sitting way in front of it to get a size comparison.









And some other critters along the fence out front.
























When I got back out to Hwy 77 and headed north again, I saw a little fruit stand and decided to stop. I bought a mango that was smaller and bright yellow.. much sweeter than the green/red ones I get at our stores.. a half dozen really good avocados, and a huge 5 pound bottle of honey. Seeing as a 16oz bottle at the store can range from 4-5 bucks or more, I though $20 for this big bottle was a decent price. Yesterday, I went to Sam's Club, and they had the EXACT same bottle for sale for $12.79. Wife pointed it out, laughing at me, knowing I carried that dang thing for 700 miles on the bike... And she wonders why I go on these rides all over the country alone.

It wasn't long heading north until I saw signs for Corpus Christi, Texas, another place I'd never been. So... since I had some time to spare, a detour was made.

The bridge heading to the island, which incidentally, is still part of the Padre Island chain.














Not much to see on this road going up through Mustang Island State Park. I turned on one of the roads that announced public beach access. Again, as much as I wanted to go ride on the beach, this is as far as the XJ got to go.









The beach here was not as nice as South Padre. Even as poor as the water color was there, here at Corpus Christie, it was worse. Plus, S. Padre had lots and lots of shells to look at, and there were very few here at this beach. On the plus side, there were some amazing views of the oil platforms.









I continued on towards the town of...









All the colors of the rainbow here...









On the GPS, there appeared to be a road that went from Port Aransas back to the mainland. Umm.. Nope. What there is, though, is a ferry service. I figured what the heck, the bike had never been on one, so I opted to go ahead and take the ferry across versus back-tracking the way I had come. I just hoped it wasn't too expensive. It turns out this is a free ferry service that takes you maybe 300 yds across the straight? I was first in line on this boat. You can see in the top right of the pic where you dock on the other side.









One of the workers stopped and asked what year my bike was. I told him '82. He asked if it was the 1100, and I told him yes. He said, "Man, those XS's and XJ's were the s**t back in the day!" Later, I asked one of the attendants why they didn't just build a bridge, and she told me that if I could figure out a way to do it, I could become very rich. There was not enough land to get a bridge to the elevation it would need to be. Things VERY LARGE pass through this waterway, some that almost touch on each side, not to mention the height. She said fuel taxes pay for the ferry service and it was job security for her. They had 8-10 boats going back and forth.



















And just about to dock on the other side.









First on meant first off.. and away I went... showing that one guy that these bikes still have it a little bit.. then had to shut it down in a hurry due to the cop waiting just outside the ferry terminal. *Sigh. With the extra weight on the back in that trunk, the bike wheelies a lot easier.

On occasion, the GPS would send me on these stupid side roads. If I was in a hurry, it would have sucked, but this trip, detours were OK.









This is a short, crappy video my camera shoots. You probably can't even see, but I was trying to show that my new speedo/dash unit I put on recently has the speedo off the opposite what most are. At 70mph shown speed, I'm actually doing 80. Seems my odometer is pretty close though since it's gear driven.




http://s1213.photobucket.com/albums/...nt=Ride138.mp4




I rode north until I reached Austin and found another Motel 6 fairly cheap. I'm sure there are some good ones, but recently the worst hotel rooms I've had have been these two Motel 6 rooms, and I'll pay a little more to stay somewhere else next time. I told someone about it, and they said, "Downtown Austin, you probably had a bunch of crack whores and druggies around you!" I responded, "So.. the normal University of Texas fans then? I should have brought more ammo.."




Next morning, headed back north again, until I saw the sign I had been looking for.









This marked the last 100 miles to the house, and the end of the story for this ride. Until next time... ride safe.

[dpotter58]

Always nice to read your trip reports Tod. I'm glad you had fun and made it home safe.

[MaximPhil]

Hi Tod, Thanks for sharing. Nice pictures and good description of what was obviously a good time. The Gorilla and Shark thing is a classic "Tourist Trap"
Phil

[Pain]

nice Make me want to get off the computer and get back on the road some more.

[Brent]

nice

Thanks Tod for good ride report.

Glad to see you are living large.