Hill country is a mysterious place. I'm drawn to explore its back roads, known as FM (farm to market), RM (ranch to market) or RR (ranch roads). Once outside the confines of the city, the landscape opens up, traffic dies down, and you begin to feel far away from home and from anyone else. On this particular run, I headed north on Parmer Lane before beginning my trek west onto the scenic 360 loop which took me south to 2224 also known as, the more intriguing, Bee Caves Rd.



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Taking the scenic route..... bypassing the uninspiring I-highway, 35. 2224 is full of long sweeping curves zig zagging over hills and valleys often giving you the vantage point of being on top of the world. At least a small part of the world but no doubt a place where more and more people, including myself, are finding appealing and glad to call home.

My goal was to find the smallest of back roads as I headed west toward Luckenbach to visit a friend.













At a ranch in Luckenbach, TX, this pictures displays the unfortunate "live oak decline". These majestic trees have been under attack by oak wilt for the past 15 or so years. Described as easy to prevent but difficult to treat, oak wilt travels rapidly through the root system to neighboring trees. The only effective way to prevent it's rapid spread is to trench a break in the root system. An extremely difficult and expensive task



Exiting the Ranch.....






Cattle grates =middle of nowhere, TX.




Also known as a "Texas Gate"







No traffic, a gentle breeze and no major highways for miles allows for a very quiet atmosphere. Keep moving though, natures scavengers, the vulchers, are circling above. Out here the cattel roam freely but I didn't encounter any. I had mismanaged my bikes fuel consumption and found myself searching POI's on the GPS for gas stations. I flagged down a rancher on an ATV and asked him to verify the distance to the nearest gas station. To my surprise, the GPS was actually right and the rancher was wrong giving me a false sense of security of "it's only about 15 miles that way". Well, it was more like 30 miles and I was running on fumes, but made it.

Lake Champlain



Ausable Chasm in eastern New York just before the ferry to Vermont over lake Champlain.

Lake Placid far below
View atop Whiteface mountain, an alpine environment



Off the beaten path....a waterfall not far from our camp just outside Lake Placid

Ah......upstate New York!
Photo of me and Brad (my brother in law) courtesy of friendly, but gruff Harley dudes.
Our Moffitt Beach camp. The mosquitoes were distressing in the morning and evenings but deet worked well against them.
My Northface Jacket kept me warm and later on in the trip dry! Highly recommended.
The night before was a cold 33 degrees but my 45 degree sleeping bag performed well. However by sunrise, the cold had finally gotten the best of me. As it turns out early June in the Adirondacks can be surprisingly cold. The locals said it was not normal. Despite the cold, Moffitt beach was beautiful and totally worth the stop.


Inside Adirondack Park on a cold evening, looking for our campsite. Soon after this picture was taken we realized that the map was not accurate thus causing us to drive past our campsite outside the town of Speculator.

The Grand Canyon of the East, Letchworth State Park in upstate New York

Here's another trail rider who told us about a town that was only a few miles away. It turned out that the town was 30 miles down the trail and the trail became increasingly treacherous.
Pat coming up the trail

Not sure what the exact temperature was but it was hot. We were told that a person would need a gallon of water a day to survive even if they were standing still. The GS's temp gauge usually reads 5 bars, but on the trail, it got up to 7 bars which is one away from the red. We couldn't get alot of airflow because our speed was only around 10-15 MPH.
Here I am catching up to Pat. After hitting a pretty good sized bump, we both lost some of our gear. I stopped to reattach my sleeping bag and retrieve Pat's water bottle. Pat rode on. While stopping, I took some time to soak in my surroundings. Its interesting to note how quite and still the desert is.

that's me
Me again
Pat with the thumbs up
Here's me enjoying the trail. I was very happy with how comfortable I was with this big bike offroad and how easy it was to maneuver even at slow speeds on uneven terrain. At this point, the trail was still very even and easy to travel, later, things got much more interesting. The conditions started to get worse a few miles later, we came across large ruts and lots of sand. We also had to dodge huge holes quit often.

Pat took his helmet off for this photo opp.

The entrance to Big Bend! As we approached the entrance I met another BMW rider who had stopped for a photo. (No picture with him though)