Truckin, Got Joel's Chips Cashed In...

While there may be someone in Texas that wanted a motorcycle more than Joel, it’s a pretty safe bet they don’t live in Grand Prairie. He had been looking and saving and saving and looking for 4 years until last week, when he finally pulled the trigger. It’s a sweet little machine, if you call a 650 little, and when we unloaded it, it was clear that all of our lives had changed. He made the first few short trips around town and his reports made both of parents feel quite a bit younger and maybe even slimmer. But while the first jaunts are exciting because of the newness, an official road trip was needed to achieve official biker/pirate credibility. It couldn’t be a lame-o, 1 hour jaunt to the country store and back either. No, this needed to be a regulation road trip that involved a minimum of 2 gas stops, twisty, windy roads with farm implements, two or three highway jerks with a close call or two and a great, hole in the wall cafe that hasn’t got the transfats memo yet. Luckily Mark knew the route that would surpass all of the requirements.

Mark has two motorcycles which allowed me to tag along and on Saturday morning we got our motors running and headed out on the highway about 7:00am. The air was cool and light as we wheeled out on 1187 skirting the filthy underbelly of Fort Worth. It was the best of guilty pleasures as we watched all of early morning joggers and bicycle riders getting in their workouts before the hot, Texas sun came out in earnest. Our aerobic duties were set on hold as we surrendered to the glory of internal combustion and loud pipes. Life just doesn’t get much better. Pretty soon we were in the country and running down roads most folks never see. The farmers around Stephenville were cutting silage and it stung our necks as it spilled over the side of the big, farm trucks. The organic smells of the fresh hay paired nicely with the dairy farm as we cruised into town for the first gas stop. We met a nice couple on a VTX 1300 from Wichita Falls who were riding to Hico and compared a few cafes and roads. A big gathering of 2-wheel Texans was in the works and was ending up at the “best barbecue joint in Texas” that afternoon. We bookmarked the address for future reference as we had already made our plans for fine dining.

Backroads have always held me in their tractor beams but riding behind my son on his yellow beast gave them an even stronger appeal. Although he was in front, I could feel the smile coming out of his exhaust which sounded happy. We met numerous other riders some slower, some faster and most all willing to wave, except for the Harley gang who seemed to be in their own world. We had one small SUV creep closer to my bumper until he eventually roared around and decided to pass all 5 bikes in our short convoy. The fact that the first two were turning left onto another highway did not deter him and he generously avoided killing both of them by punching in between them and forcing the 2^nd one off the road onto the shoulder. Luckily all five of us remembered how to shoot the bird and let him roar off in the distance with our curses of gut wrenching diarrhea upon his head. That’s just another bonus of being in the country though. In the city sometimes it’s hard to distinguish the dick-weeds, but in the country they stand out like a diamond in a goat’s ass.

After all that excitement we were hungry and tired, and as luck would have it, close to Mary’s in Strawn. Many places claim to have the best burger, steak, catfish, etc., but Mary’s holds the undisputed chicken fried steak crown. From the moment you step on the concrete floors and smell the cigarette smoke in the back room, you know you’ve arrived in culinary heaven. The exact millisecond your bike weary butt hits the naugahyde cushioned chairs, a giant iced tea appears on the formica table top. The waitresses are always the same, one too cute, one too fat and one too pregnant, but all of them sweeter than the pink saccharin packets they give if you ask for them cause everyone knows you use sugar for tea. Once your senses have recovered from their initial overload, you face your only real decisions, small, medium or large and choice of salad dressing which comes conveniently in multicolored squirt bottles. The small was perfect for Mark and I and even Joel remembered the large as being outrageous, so he settled for the medium. 10 minutes later giant cafeteria-beige, plastic platters of breaded, pan fried, round steak, Texas toast and thick cut french fries made their appearance along with a big bowl of gravy. The salad now comes in a tiny relish dish so it doesn’t ruin any of the gravy. Thirty minutes later we stumbled out in the hot sun and saddled up.

The ride home was uneventful in our gluttony induced torpor. We met a Harley rider at a gas station in Weatherford that actually spoke to us metric types and discussed the weather a little. When we pulled back into Mark’s driveway, the odometer was 267 clicks heavier than when we left. Mark and I were both so beaten down we had to drink several glasses of ice-water before we could stand back up. Apparently, Joel wasn’t quite as tired since he roared off to see his friends and show off the new machine. All in all, a damn fine day.