Austin, TX to Warsaw, IN (and back)

[username]

fellow BMW enthusiasts,

a buddy and i recently rode up top warsaw, indiana to meet the rounders at the annual round-up. i thought i'd cross-post my ride report from the rounders' site so you can see how much fun we had.
-----------------------------------------------

Day 1: Austin, TX to Jackson, MS. We rode Capital to Capital on Day 1. It was really nice riding on back roads all through Texas, Louisiana, and into Mississippi.

http://www.leetonium.com/truth/day1_big.jpg
We rode Capital to Capital on Day 1. It was really nice riding on back roads all through Texas, Louisiana, and into Mississippi.

http://www.leetonium.com/truth/truth_086.jpg
We met this dog on a gas stop in Louisiana (State Motto: " We shoot and mount anything that moves, and not necessarily in that order.")

http://www.leetonium.com/truth/truth_001.jpg
I didn't take another photo until we were about to cross the Mighty Mississippi headed into Natchez.

http://www.leetonium.com/truth/truth_088.jpg
We stopped for some pulled pork barbecue in Natchez.

http://www.leetonium.com/truth/truth_089.jpg
Here's the owner guy whipping up our sandwiches.

http://www.leetonium.com/truth/truth_091.jpg
Mine. It was really good. (I added sauce after the photo...)

http://www.leetonium.com/truth/truth_092.jpg
John with his. This style of photo has become a trademark of our ride reports.

http://www.leetonium.com/truth/truth_100.jpg
There was an overlook behind the restaurant. There is the bridge we rode over.

[username]

http://www.leetonium.com/truth/truth_010.jpg
In Natchez we picked up the Natchez Trace Parkway. It looks like this for about, oh, 450 miles or so. It's amazing. No cars, no towns, nothing. Just a ribbon of perfect asphalt nestled into the forests of Mississippi and Tennessee.

Then: "The heaviest use of the Old Trace was from 1800 to about 1825 by men, known as "Kaintucks," who floated down the Ohio and Mississippi rivers and returned north on foot. But the stories of the Old Trace reach far beyond the early 1800s. They include Mound Builders, Natchez, Choctaw, and Chickasaw Indians, preachers, bandits, slaves, soldiers, settlers, and even Meriwether Lewis."

Now: "The 444-mile Natchez Trace Parkway commemorates an ancient trail that connected southern portions of the Mississippi River, through Alabama, to salt licks in today's central Tennessee. Today, visitors can experience this National Scenic Byway and All-American Road through driving, hiking, biking, horseback riding, and camping."

http://www.leetonium.com/truth/truth_015.jpg
We saw a group of cyclists along the way. It seems like it'd be a wonderful road to bicycle on - safe and scenic for hundreds of miles.

http://www.leetonium.com/truth/truth_103.jpg
We stopped to add some warm clothes as it was getting dark. We were parked near this swamp so I went and snapped some photos of it.

http://www.leetonium.com/truth/truth_108.jpg
Down we go to the boardwalk.

http://www.leetonium.com/truth/truth_117.jpg
It was pretty cool.

[username]

Day 2: Jackson, MS to Cave City, KY

http://www.leetonium.com/truth/day2_big.jpg
Day 2 was one of the best days riding I've had. We rode the Natchez Trace all the way to Nashville, then got on the interstate to Cave City, KY, home of Mammoth Cave.

http://www.leetonium.com/truth/truth_026.jpg
We kept seeing these banks along the way. The Fifth Third Bank. When we saw this one, I could not recall seeing the first four, nor any of the various First Banks or Second Banks. Frankly, I was confused as hell about this bank's name. It made me wonder, if this is how they count banks, how the hell do they count your MONEY? If you withdraw $40 from the ATM, does your statement show that you removed your first and second twenties? Your fourth ten? Your eighth fifth?

http://www.leetonium.com/truth/truth_126.jpg
We had breakfast in Rib Alley in a little town called Kosciusko. And of course like all small towns, these breakfast places are the real seat of power. While we were there a Lion's Club meeting was wrapping up, and in the back all the local cops were eating breakfast.

http://www.leetonium.com/truth/truth_127.jpg
Or maybe it was the Rotary Club? Check this out - this place is the official meeting place for all the Motherhood and Apple Pie-type organizations of a small community.

http://www.leetonium.com/truth/truth_133.jpg
They have little patches for all the programs and events they are involved in.

http://www.leetonium.com/truth/truth_134.jpg
This is something the Exchange Club does. I couldn't find anything specific on the web for it, but that doesn't surprise me. I suppose there is a bit of a generational gap with the members of these clubs - older folks who aren't super computer savvy. I wonder if these groups will cease to exist over the next generation? Maybe not, maybe they are important in small towns, and living in Austin I don't see the need to even know that they exist.

[username]

http://www.leetonium.com/truth/truth_135.jpg
This one is funny. It looks like something from the Daily Show. Seeing this stuff puts me in conflict. On one hand, I am very cynical and deeply suspicious of authority and these kinds of organizations. On the other hand, it tugs at my sense of patriotism and love for (most of) America and what it means to be American. So on one hand I think, "Hey it's cool for kids to wave flags" and part of me thinks, "Dang, the kid looks like a drugged pig!"

http://www.leetonium.com/truth/truth_138.jpg
John was very happy to get his biscuits with...

http://www.leetonium.com/truth/truth_139.jpg
Two kinds of gravy. The white gravy is the normal biscuit gravy found in the south. The red stuff was some local thing. It was kinda weird, more like a marinade than a biscuit topping.

http://www.leetonium.com/truth/truth_144.jpg
Later in the day we got gas at a place that still had the old-timey rolling numbers! There was also a PAY PHONE at this gas station, but I didn't take a picture of it. Major time warp.

http://www.leetonium.com/truth/truth_147.jpg
What's John looking at?

http://www.leetonium.com/truth/truth_148.jpg
A really neat bridge!

[username]

http://www.leetonium.com/truth/truth_151.jpg
"The Natchez Trace Parkway Bridge is the nation's first segmentally constructed concrete arch bridge. Spanning 502 m (1,648 feet), the double arch structure offers motorists a view from 47m (155 feet) above the valley floor and is one of the final links in the Natchez Trace Parkway project. The bridge's arches are designed to support the deck without evenly spaced spandrel columns, resulting in a picturesque, unencumbered appearance."

http://www.leetonium.com/truth/truth_160.jpg
John noticed that the bridge has no expansion joints out in the middle of it - it's continuous.

http://www.leetonium.com/truth/truth_164.jpg
You can get right underneath it. It's neat. I thought, "This would be a great place to sit and drink beers in high school."

http://www.leetonium.com/truth/truth_169.jpg
The expansion joints were at the ends, where it meets solid land. The whole span was resting on these giant sliders. You know those things you can buy to put under your furniture to make it easier to slide around on wood floors? Same idea.

http://www.leetonium.com/truth/truth_173.jpg
Amazing - look at the MIRROR FINISH that they put on the bottom surface to reduce friction! That's polished stainless steel. You are looking at the reflection of the cylindrical pad the shiny metal thing sits on. They cut a groove in it so it only slides along the axis of the bridge. These things are like telescope mirrors.

http://www.leetonium.com/truth/truth_185.jpg
Ok one last look at the bridge.

http://www.leetonium.com/truth/truth_199.jpg
We saw this dude cruising along. It looks like a gypsy moth caterpillar, and it triggered one of several very vivid memories I have from 6th grade. I'm not going to subject you to it now.

http://www.leetonium.com/truth/truth_208.jpg
We got to a hotel in Cave City, KY. This was the door lock. Look at this - they spelled "Locks" "Lox." What, are these made from freakin' salmon?! No! This is something that I really despise, all these puns and poorly spelled words that business use. In college I had a professor that used to rant against this - John Morreall. Dr. Morreall is an expert on humor, and one of the classes i took from him was the Philosophy of Good and Bad Taste. Our text was called "The Encyclopedia of Bad Taste." (I still have it on the shelf here.) The basic premise was that taste was not subjective, but instead absolute. Bad taste was easily identified and classified. And America was the world's leading producer of the stuff in the form of Americana. Dr. Morreall used to ruthlessly mock businesses that used the letter "N" in place of the word "and." We are all familiar with Linens-N-Things. He would rail against this, and when he pronounced it, he would say the N with such force, with such emphasis, leaning forward, baring his teeth, and lathering it with bile usually associated for society's worst crimes. He'd say, "linens" like a normal person, but when he got to the N he'd just lean in and draw it out. "NNNNNNNNN!!!!!!" then say things like a normal person. Arts-NNNNNNN!-Crafts! Quilts-NNNNNNNN!-Sewing Supplies. Pets-NNNNNNNN!-Grooming.

And this crap is everywhere. Look around you - retail is probably the biggest threat the english language has ever faced.

http://www.leetonium.com/truth/truth_210.jpg
And does it stop with the lock, no! Look at the "Kee-Card!" I looked down at the card and I expected a representative of the lock company to materialize wearing a pair of plaid pants, slap me on the back and guffaw, "Get it?!"

Day 2 ended and we slept well.

[username]

Day 3:Cave City, KY to Warsaw, IN
Oops, no map.

http://www.leetonium.com/truth/truth_211.jpg
So here we are at the motel packing up in the morning. if you look closely you can see that there is something in the window in the room next to ours...

http://www.leetonium.com/truth/truth_212.jpg
What. The. Hell.

http://www.leetonium.com/truth/truth_028.jpg
On the way to the cave, we had to ride through one of those annoying touristy areas where they have lots of putt-putt courses and go-kart tracks. When I was a little kid, I always wanted to stop, but my parents would never let me. Well, it's a good thing we never came to Mammoth Cave when I was little. You see, I was a dinosaur MANIAC when I was little. So if I had seen this lifesize triceratops on the side of the road, and my Dad kept driving I'd probably have pulled the door handle and dove out of the car.

http://www.leetonium.com/truth/truth_029.jpg
How cool is that?! It was at an attraciton called "Dinosaur World" which no doubt sucked, but I'm sure kids nag parents until they let them go see it. Roadside attractions like this are probably the leading cause of family problems in the US.

http://www.leetonium.com/truth/truth_027.jpg
John is probably the best travel partner ever. We had ~300 miles to ride this day, but he was cool with swinging by Mammoth Cave National Park to see how it was. Recall that we visited Carlsbad Caverns on an earlier trip, and I was curious to see how Mammoth and Carlsbad compared to each other. As an American, I am incapable of appreciating things on a stand-alone basis. I need to compare them so I know which one is the BEST. And when I know, I then need to devote 75% of my time bitching about the lesser item, and only 25% being positive about the good one, or simply the fact that both things are really cool. (Of course this can only be done while shopping at a mall, running up crushing credit card debt.)

Besides, you, my readership, need to have these things sorted out for you.

[username]

http://www.leetonium.com/truth/truth_220.jpg
Mammoth Cave is known as the world's longest cave. It's 300 miles or something like that of underground tunnels. I think Carlsbad claims to be the largest cave. This distinction is lost on most of us "surface" people, but not on the rangers.

http://www.leetonium.com/truth/truth_222_crop_sm.jpg
If i had to imagine a National Park Ranger, this is what I'd picture. He was a fun guide too. This is where he was telling us about how strenuous the tour was, how weak people, old people, young people, people scared of heights, and claustrophobic people should go get a refund and forget about it. (Check out the cool kid in the background.)

http://www.leetonium.com/truth/truth_225.jpg
Down we go!

http://www.leetonium.com/truth/truth_227.jpg
This was one of the first big rooms. In here they were mining nitrates to use to make gunpowder. I think DuPont was involved with this.

http://www.leetonium.com/truth/truth_230.jpg
They have a nice walkway in this part of the cave. It's pretty large.

http://www.leetonium.com/truth/truth_240.jpg
It's hard to tell in this photo, but this is about a 50 foot drop.

http://www.leetonium.com/truth/truth_243.jpg
It got kind of cramped in certain parts.

http://www.leetonium.com/truth/truth_247.jpg
This was cool - kind of an underground waterfall. It was just trickling when we were there, but they say that when it rains more water comes down from the sinkhole up above.

http://www.leetonium.com/truth/truth_249.jpg
You climb this big tower on the way out.

[username]

http://www.leetonium.com/truth/truth_255.jpg
All that walking around made us hungry, and we needed to hit the road so we decided to eat at the park. One of the very cool things about the fact that we deprive our National Park System of adequate funding is that they are incapable of remodeling their restaurants. So when you go there, it's like going back in time to the 1950s.

http://www.leetonium.com/truth/truth_258.jpg
Crushed ice. Ahhhhhh. If I ran the world this stuff would be required in every restaurant.

http://www.leetonium.com/truth/truth_259.jpg
I got a cheeseburger with unmelted cheese.

http://www.leetonium.com/truth/truth_260.jpg
John got a bowl of pinto beans and a salad. Healthful!

We then hauled ass to the hotel in Warsaw, met you guys around 9pm, and had a bunch of beers in the bar.

[username]

http://www.leetonium.com/truth/truth_268.jpg
Here are some rounders hanging around kicking tired and telling racing stories.

http://www.leetonium.com/truth/truth_263.jpg
WHAT THE?!

http://www.leetonium.com/truth/truth_270.jpg
We ended up with a pretty spacious room.

http://www.leetonium.com/truth/truth_274.jpg
In one corner a fireplace and a TV.

http://www.leetonium.com/truth/truth_276.jpg
And in the other, none othe rthan el dookey!

http://www.leetonium.com/truth/truth_033.jpg
That afternoon we walked down to the little community of Winona Lake. There were all these perfect little houses there.

http://www.leetonium.com/truth/truth_035.jpg
Each of them housed a person who was some sort of craftsman or artist. It was contrived, but still very nice.

http://www.leetonium.com/truth/truth_037.jpg
Check out these neat flower boxes.

http://www.leetonium.com/truth/truth_041.jpg

http://www.leetonium.com/truth/truth_043.jpg

[username]

http://www.leetonium.com/truth/truth_051.jpg
They built condos in a touristy area, in between the park and the lake. Smart. Friendly!

http://www.leetonium.com/truth/truth_052.jpg
On the way back to the hotel we walked along the railroad tracks.

http://www.leetonium.com/truth/truth_054.jpg
This is 100 pound track? 100 ton? I forget. John knew what the markings meant. I'll ask him and update this.

http://www.leetonium.com/truth/truth_310.jpg
Sawyer Brown played at the hotel that night. (I still have no idea who the hell they are, or he is, or whatever.)

http://www.leetonium.com/truth/truth_277.jpg
We had about 35 people at dinner Saturday night. People from Canada, Massachusetts, Illinois, Ohio, DC.

http://www.leetonium.com/truth/truth_286.jpg
To the rounders! Yeah!

[username]

http://www.leetonium.com/truth/truth_298.jpg
This couple is a good story. We were off in one end of the restaurant, making noise and screwing around. Around us were a few tables of "normal" people just trying to enjoy their dinner. We saw these two, and I asked this guy if they were on their first date. He sheepishly said yes, and we all roared and cheered. It embarrassed the hell out of them. As compensation John and I paid for their dinner so they would at least have to say, "It was a bunch of motorcycling nut jobs, but at least they bought our dinner. Freaks."

http://www.leetonium.com/truth/truth_299.jpg
Awards were given. Here the club is being presented with a deed to a small piece of land purchased in Hell, MI. It's a square inch or something like that.

http://www.leetonium.com/truth/truth_303.jpg
I won a stuffed bear...

[username]

Day 5: Warsaw, IN to Sikeston, MO

http://www.leetonium.com/truth/day5_big.jpg
The goal of Day 5 was to get close to the Ozark Mountains so we could goof around them on Day 6, then spend Day 7 making our way home at a leisurely pace through Texas. It didn't all turn out quite like that...

http://www.leetonium.com/truth/truth_059.jpg
I didn't really care for the stuffed bear. In fact, I pretty much hated him. So I decided to mount him on the windscreen and let him get blasted with bugs. I was hoping for several hours of riding in the rain too, so he would turn black. I'm sure lots of you are saying, "Awwww," and all that but I just think 99% of plush toys are dull.

http://www.leetonium.com/truth/truth_061.jpg
I only made it one gas stop, and I'd had it with the bear. I didn't like him, and I didn't feel too good about abusing him. I also felt like a dope for having a bear on my windscreen. So I left him at the gas station. So long, bear!

http://www.leetonium.com/truth/truth_316.jpg
We had an incredible lunch here at this place. I wish I could remember what town it was. I was able to forgive the "Bacon NNNNNNN! Eggs" on their sign.

http://www.leetonium.com/truth/truth_064.jpg
We then pointed west and headed for the Mississippi.

http://www.leetonium.com/truth/truth_320.jpg
We stopped along the Mississippi to see about staying in this town...

http://www.leetonium.com/truth/truth_335.jpg
Cape Girardeau. There wasn't much that seemed good so we headed to Sikeston. Before we left...

http://www.leetonium.com/truth/truth_331.jpg
We went down to the edge of the water to take some photos. This is looking back at the bridge leading to the town. Notice the huge flood wall on the right.

http://www.leetonium.com/truth/truth_333.jpg
And the huge door they close when the water rises.

We went on to Sikeston and got some sleep.

[username]

We woke up on Day 6 and headed West. We were given a couple of route suggestions from Bulldog and were anxious to try out the roads. I'm not exactly sure what route we ended up taking, so what you see below is just a SWAG.

http://www.leetonium.com/truth/day6_big.jpg
We took almost no photos. The roads up in the part of AR we were in were really really nice. Good pavement and almost no other cars. lots of up and down, lots of great turns. We're definitely headed back up there at some point.

http://www.leetonium.com/truth/truth_356.jpg
We stopped at a truck stop in Hope, AR around 9PM. I took a few photos of the bike in weird light.

http://www.leetonium.com/truth/truth_361.jpg
John took a catnap.

http://www.leetonium.com/truth/day7_big.jpg
I was anxious to be back in Austin. John was not. So we split up. I rode the remaining 400 miles back to Austin. It turned out to be a long ride - we had already ridden for about 12 hours that day. I got home around 6:30am. (tried to sleep, couldn't, so I just went in to work.) John went to Dallas, visited some friends, and then took a very leisurely pace home down the west side of I-35. Maybe 281, I'm not sure.

That's it!

[BradfordBenn]

A quick translation. El Dookey is Cliffy777 over here.

It was a blast.

[username]

good point brad. there are other MOA members in a couple of those photos as well.