First purchased for keeping camp food cold, now used for Lone Star Light.
Way back in 2008, when I had a KLR650, and I had dreams of riding around the world like Ewan McGregor and Charlie Boorman in Long Way Round, I had a much bigger problem. How was I going to keep my eggs and bacon cold on the way to a West Virginia camping trip? For millennia humanity has struggled with such conundrums, until someone cheated physics and figured out how to keep water solid for much longer than the norm, historically speaking. Sneaking this ice around proved quite difficult, so a small box was devised to conceal and maintain this precious marvel of engineering, portable ice.
Thus the ice box was invented, and there was much rejoicing.
With a Rok-Strap across the top, and filled to the brim with some tasty lunch items, I was off. Leaving early at 7am sharp, it was already a sweltering 85 degrees and humid. June in Texas hath arrived.
I wanted to capture some lesser seen areas of the Hill Country today, so I quickly blasted through Wimberly, Fischer, Blanco, Sisterdale, Kendalia, Comfort, and Kerrville. The main targets were from Ingram to Lost Maples, following and crossing the many creeks feeding the Guadalupe River.
This stretch of the Guadalupe is covered with resorts, cabins, camps, and many other houses where space is available. In the last few years many have moved here, and the million dollar manors are steadily under construction. The times, they are a changin’.
Regardless of the twisty roads and wonderful scenery, man was it hot. Flashbacks of riding the previous summers. Sweat that sticks because it’s humid by the rivers. The smell of sunblock in the helmet. Every black surface on the bike being… hot.
But wow look at these creeks!
My motorcycle friends often ask, “What’s the riding like in the Hill Country?”, and after riding around Europe a bit last summer, I tell them it’s like Tuscany. “Tuscany?! No way, it can’t be that nice.” Ok it’s like Costco Tuscany. Better yet it would technically be Kirkland Brand Tuscany.
Riding the Hill Country is like Kirkland Brand Tuscany…
The road continues to sweep left, right, up and down. Corners peek out from under the trees, and the way ahead meanders along side the river. With the rains recently, I have never seen this area so green in June. It’s a breath of fresh, hot, humid air, and my soul is taking tepid gulps.
Wow I’m really stretching there for a metaphor, but I digress.
My lunch box was having the time of its life. It probably needs a name at this point, but if it could talk, it would probably be saying something like “WHY HAVE I, A SMALL VOLUME OF PLASTIC, BEEN GRANTED SENTIENCE? WHAT CRUEL JUDGE OR MISTRESS HAS BESTOWED THIS CURSED EXISTENCE, AS I WONDER ON THE COSMOS INFINITE STRAPPED TO THE BACK OF THIS MOTORCYCLE?!”
These are the things I think about while I ride. No, really, I was having this exact conversation with my lunch box going through the turn I pictured above. I took a picture and said “Lunchbox, I’m going to write about this when we get home, don’t let me forget.” I actually said that out loud to my lunch box. Motorcyclists say things in their helmets all the time, and most of us are none the wiser.
Past hunt, into the higher areas of the Hill Country, the hills started looking extra legit. The traffic thinned to nothing, the sun stood higher, and the vast expanse of Western Central Texas – not a real thing – revealed itself. There are many ranches, with triple digit plus acreages, and large fences keeping in their animals, or out depending on your point of view. The emptiness started whispering to me as I pondered life. It said:
“Hey you should take a picture in the middle of the road, you haven’t seen a car for 10 minutes.”
If you stay on this course long enough, you start to carve through some real hills that Midwesterners might call mountains, but we don’t talk like that around these parts. Still, the canyons sliced this way and that, and dwarfed the bike.
With the hard work and a bit of fun out of the way, I found a picnic spot on the Guadalupe and opened my recently anthropomorphized lunch box.
I traipsed down to the creek and instantly regretted not packing a swimsuit.
I mean I could easily strip down to my cycling shorts, but then I’d have wet foamy butt for the ride home, and I just wanted to keep it sweaty foamy butt. I made a mental note that swim trunks and a towel should live in my side case for situations like this.
Blogs and photos are supposed to tell a story, and that’s the story worth telling today. The ride home was hot, uneventful, and devoid of photos as I couldn’t stop thinking about getting home and into a cold shower.
Enjoy the gallery…
