The top of my windshield is two inches below my line of sight. That's fortunate, because it's covered with water droplets (mostly on the inside). I can see just about eleven or twelve feet in front of that plastic device. The fog gets thicker with (I swear) every foot I ride. Man, am I lost. That doesn't seem reasonable to me in light of the fact that I spent at least two or three minutes last night in careful preparation for this, my inaugural ride to LUCKENBACH, TEXAS, home of Willie, Waylen, and the Boys. The Bandera citizens didn't tell me yesterday afternoon at the 11th Street Cowboy Bar that there were a dozen or so ranch roads that seem perfectly logical alternatives to whatever is the anointed path to my destination for the morning's ride. I could park my BMW, pop open the saddlebag and consult my map, but what if somebody happened by and witnessed my lack of geographical acumen (you know, that "I'm not lost" thing with which we males are afflicted).

Okay, like Hansel and Gretel, I tell myself, I'll retrace my path back down through the hills while keeping a sharp eye peeled for any Farm and Market road with a directional marker. I am absolutely clueless as to where North is hiding itself.

As it turns out, the college kids from UT did not steal EVERY Lukenbach sign to tote home to the dorm, and I soon blunder upon one that looks like it was recently minted in one of the prison workshops just off Harlem Road back home in Fort Bend County. Alright! Now I am close to my destination. Here, around another bend in the road is (YES!) Lukenbach.

Okay, so the tarmac has given way to dirt (hey, road bikes don't like anything less predictable than concrete). That's okay, this is an historical moment, fraught with Texas history (mine, anyway). I wobble and weave ahead, hoping no representative of CYCLE magazine is lurking nearby, for some tens of yards to my final destination.

WHAT A BUMMER. I see: a log cabin labeled "Post Office". No people. A Longhorn steer behind a fence. Fog. No coffee. No breakfast.

It suddenly occurs to me that I may have been sent on the Bandera County version of the "Snipe Hunt" of my Kansas youth.

Oh, well. Tomorrow I will challenge the "Twisted Sisters": the Farm and Ranch roads numbers 335,336, and 337. In the early morning hours while the sun is hibernating under the horizon, sparks will occasionally issue from the nether mechanical parts of my motorcycle as I blast through the curves and switchbacks, deer whistle wailing inaudibly (to humans). This'll be worth the trip. "It's why we ride", and so forth.

-to be continued_

Learn more about this author, Larry Balding.
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