I had not been to a rally. I think I avoided them mostly out of fear that I would do something terminally stupid like drop the motorcycle in front of everyone. But I’ve been encouraged by my friend Mike Truel in Oklahoma City to go to them since they are such a great way to meet interesting riders.
The Texas Rally is billed as a “no frills, no cost” rally. While there were no frills provided, the cost of camping at the event was $1. What a deal.
The rally moved to a new location this year at Robinson City Park in Llano, TX. Easy to get to just a couple miles west of town on Hwy 152. Nice park with great camping sites — only draw back seemed to be disgusting bathroom facilities. Even the guys were grossed out by the men’s rooms.
I left around 9:00 Saturday morning and took my time wandering down there. To many trips to Mexico, Big Bend, and San Antonio have left me bored with the standard routes so I followed obscure county roads and figured if I kept heading southwest I’d get there eventually.
I was surprised that the trees were behind the trees in the Dallas area. The oaks in my yard are in full leaf already, but as I neared the Llano area the trees were just starting to leaf out. I didn’t really see a lot of wildflowers until I got past San Saba, but from that point on the road side and the surrounding fields were carpeted in brilliant color.
I stopped in Llano and got a late lunch (4:00) at Stillwater’s and headed toward the park. Since it was still early I road past the park entrance and down 152 where the flowers were much heavier than they were along route 16.
I was back at the park by 5:00 and ran into folks I know from BMWDFW. The rally wasn’t what I expected, but the guys warned me it’s not how rallies typically are. There was a man giving a presentation on his ride to Tierra del Fuego. The covered pavilion was huge so we sat in the back where we could chat quietly and not bother the people huddled up around the speaker. After
about 3o minutes a man walked around the room ordering people to stop talking. I was shocked. I wanted to ask him if we were in second grade.
A group of us went out to the picnic table nearest our tents. It was 9:15 but people were in their tents and complained about us talking. I gave up an went to bed.
There were people up at 4:30 and 5:00 the next morning talking loudly and making a lot of noise — was I supposed to yell at them to be quiet? I think not. Like I said — not what I expected from a rally. Not the early risers. I think that’s totally normal for camping. I mean the people telling others to be quiet.
Sunday dawned with complete cloud cover and rain threatening so I wandered back northeast on county roads. The highlight was stopping for lunch in Meredian. I figured I’d be lucky if I could find a decent hamburger, but when I stopped at the Cactus Grill on 144 just after turning left from 22 I ended having pecan encrusted pork with cinnamon sweet potatoes. Who would have figured? I would strongly recommend other riders stop and check the place out. The food was wonderful, the service was great from a waitress who very sweet and a lot of fun.
You can find info about them here: http://www.meridian-chamber.com/Information_Pages/Cactus%20Grill%20Page%202.pdf
And I rode 600 miles and got back in the garage without having to tear my motorcycle apart one time. Big improvement over the three times I had to do it on the Big Bend trip.
Leave a Reply