Nov 8 – Houston, TX

Dan Greenlee and Beemer. He converted his side car into a toolbox

In the morning Dan introduced me to Tommy Fabregas, owner and operator of Houston Motorcycle Exchange. Apparently there will be about 150 riders screaming around the dessert for two days. Tommy also said that there may or may not be other GS’s out there to ride with. We exchanged numbers and talked about touching base to see if my GS would fit on a flatbed trailer with five other bikes.

At around noon I went up to BMW Woodlands to get my 6k service out of the way. They did a great job and insisted that if I ever need any help on the road to just let them know. Thanks guys.

I stayed at Houston International Youth Hostel for the night. Sorry Dan, I’m allergic to cats. Gordon the front desk clerk helped me big time with some computer issues that I had.

Nov 9 – Houston

Now my original plan was to head directly South from Houston to cross into Mexico from Pharr, TX. By staying with Dan, all my plans flew out the window, and I’m glad they did.

Met up with Tommy around 4pm. He has big Ford with a camper on top, that tows a flatbed trailer. We wedged my GS in the back between two dirtbikes with my three cases on either side.

After that we went to Tommy’s house to load on two more bikes.

Then we headed to Ed’s house to load on his bike.

Ed is in white. Tommy’s in Red

This day kind of runs into the next as we leave Houston around 7pm for Terlingua, TX, eleven hours West, right next to Big Bend National Park.

We ride until the deer on the side of the road are so thick you can smell their farts. No, no that was the Chinese Buffet, the gift that keeps on giving! We stop at around 3am after some close calls with some of the dumber deer of the herd. We sleep for a few hours behind Ron and Ron, father and son, in their van with their trailer and bikes in tow.

Nov 10 – Terlingua, TX

We unload the bikes and hit the trail. Ron and Ron are camped in the site next to ours. It isn’t long before Tommy has all of us, Ron, Ron, Ed and I, scrambling over some shitty dried up stream that turns into two foot tall grass and some gnarled little trees complete with thorns. We have to turn around.

After a couple of miles of some nice dirt roads. Lo and behold shitty dried up stream number two. This one is a lot bigger and a lot more fun to be honest.

Ed stopped ahead of us. He was seated with his head between his knees. It looked like he was hurt. Actually he had spotted some fossils in the rock ledge he was riding on. Ed, being a geologist, was full of all sorts of cool information regarding our surroundings, which were 99.9% rock. After sliding his helmet back on, he and Tommy launched themselves off the aforementioned rock ledge to the slippery, boulderry (are there two R’s in boulderry?) surface below. These guys could ride.

There was some real tricky rock crawling and shale sliding to get my off road cherry broken. The GS is big but surprisingly nimble. Yes I just used the word nimble. I lost my headlight guard in the melee somewhere. Oh yeah and the stream bed/trail ended at a relatively fresh avalanche/rockslide. We had to turn back.

After that it was back to the Tarmac for some smooth corners. I got a little too big for my saddle and almost ended up in a ditch and a pine box.

I got my first glance at how amazing this part of the world is. Huge, grand, open, harsh, unforgiving, tough. It is the old West. Film does not do it justice

Because we were just merely going for a cruise, I had no camera, no documentation. We hit the same kind of stuff later the next day I just wish I had the damn creek beds on record for Tommy. We all had a blast.

We had a fun dinner at La Kiva. An underground cave sort of thing, I’m not sure how to describe it. The food was good though. Of course… I would have eaten tempura rat paw at that point. The Chicken was great. Colin and I had the last two orders of chicken that night. We gloated, as should be expected. It was really good.

Colin is Burl’s son. Burl founded the Terlingua Dual Sport Ride in 1996.

Dinner at La Kiva, Friday, Nov 10