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.