Fall Ride to the Hill Country Part 2

I met Julian at his place in Mesquite and we mapped out a route for our trip to Canyon Lake. He has a Time Share at the Hill Country Resort off FM 306 on the east side of Canyon Lake. We chose to take a cross country route and stay off the interstate as much as possible. So we headed east then down through Kaufman, over to Ennis, south to Highway 14 and down through Mexia. We made a short stop in Calvert for some good ole DQ ice cream and did touring circle of Old Town Calvert. Rode by the place I grew up, the old school, up by the Calvert Cemetery then turned left to go by the old big Mansion Homes that are around the southeast side of town.

Calvert Tour of Homes is scheduled every spring where you can do a walk thru of several of these great old homes. As I was growing up in Calvert I was given the opportunity to see some of these before they were fixed up as a show place. Many people have lived in these homes through the years and a lot of work has gone into these homes to keep them presentable. Many of the details of how they were first constructed are still visible as most of the work was focused on keeping to the original designs.
As we rode on heading in a southeast direction we enjoyed seeing some of the good farm country Texas has to offer. With not too many eye catching experiences on our trip we ended checking in around sundown.

A pleasant ride even though the wind was pushing a little at twenty or so.
After a little walk down the street for our breakfast our first choice of rides was The River Road out of Sattler, just south of the lake. It runs about eleven miles crossing the Comal River about four times as it switches back and forth through the trees and past many places to rent cabins and or canoes if you wanted to spend some time on the water. We made a stop about halfway down and I took out my camera to see what I could get a descent picture of. I’ll find out how to post pictures and try to include a few along the way.

This was on a Tuesday so the traffic wasn’t what it would be during a weekend or during the heat of the summer. The last time I rode this route, as I was about to the end I came upon a place in the river that was full of tubes, rafts, canoes, anything that would float. Apparently the local college crowd was having a beer party on the river. There must have been two thousand people out there.
We made a little stop at the local Harley dealership so I could dream about my next bike and Julian could glance through the shirt clearance rack. He likes to add to his shirt collection when he can.
Afterward we decided to take a trip up to Willow City, run the Willow City Loop and stop by the hunting lease my brothers and I have. After a cutting across to tie into Hwy 290 off and up to FM 1323 we ran into a little car chase. Just after I turned onto 290, after checking that I had plenty of room I was quite surprised to be passed by a car at a pretty high rate of speed. Just as it passed me I saw the back window open and a 32” flat screen TV come flying out. Both myself and the car coming from the other direction had to swerve and pull over to keep from being hit by it. That thing flew up into the air for twenty feet before it landed on the pavement and slide over to the side of the road. Then as I made my turn and pulled over three police cars came barreling past us with lights and sirens blasting away. Julian called the Johnson City police and they said they had them in their sights. Blanco county has had a string of burglaries the last few months and they think these were the ones responsible.

The rest of the trip through the loop and into the lease gave plenty of chances to see the local deer population. They were plenty of deer out, the most I’ve seen in a while on one trip. As we headed back the temperature started going down so we put on our extra shirt and jacket and made our way back keeping an eye on all the little green eyes you see on the side of the road after dark. Talk about raising your awareness levels!

The next morning as we headed into New Braunsfels to find a different place for breakfast we spotted another deer crossing the main four lane road going into town. I was surprise to see he made it across. Although he had a good rack you could tell it was a young deer. We finally found a little place off the beaten path called Martina’s Café. They had pretty good breakfast tacos even though it was almost eleven o’clock.

It was a pretty good four days of riding and laying around and soaking in the hot tub.


The Canyon Lake Dam