“Make new friends but keep the old. One is silver and the other gold.”

I was reminded of this old Campfire girls song this weekend when spending precious time with one of my very best friends. We were reminiscing and she mentioned we’ve been friends for 20 years. In that time period, she’s lived and traveled all over the world and I’ve stayed busy with raising two kids. And even though our lives are very different, we are bound by our common heritage, our energy backgrounds and work, and our appreciation for spending quality time with each other. Linsi is family.

This led to an interesting conversation between me and Biker about friends. We each still stay in loose touch with a few friends from high school and college, but much more time is spent with friends we’ve accumulated over the past 10 years. These are people we have lots in common with – work, hobbies like motorcycling, and interests like reading. While Biker spends every Sunday with his motorcycle friends, I have a small group of girlfriends that I see mostly individually, having a drink about once a month plus book club once every 6 weeks. This is enough for both of us.

In the end, my circle of close relationships is small and that’s the way I like it.

Although there are many types of friendships, there are common characteristics that bond people together — common backgtounds or interests, similar geographies or occupations, enjoyment of each other’s company, honesty, trust, and the ability to be yourself, express your feelings and make mistakes without fear of judgment.

There is a place for new and old friendships in life. The richness of these bonds make us who we are, provide us solace and laughter, and alter our view of the world.

Seeing my gold friend, Linsi, as always, was such a treat. And I know that next time we see each other, – whether it’ sin a month or six months – we’ll  pick up as if we were together yesterday.

The day started off beautiful, but COLD!  See attached pic for view of early temp -45 degrees. So, obviously we were suited up like the Michelin Man, making it warm but hard to move around. Tough to get the leg up over the bike when you can’t bend your leg very well! 🙂

We headed out on the classic 3s loop — 337, 335 and 336 — then turned north up 83 and up the River Road into Hunt (beautiful drive!) and up to Luckenbach to the Harvest Classic Bike Rally.

We ponied up the $20 each for a day pass – I had to remind Biker it was for a good cause (they’re raising money for families battling childhood cancer). We stood in a loooooooong line to get a beer and a pulled pork sandwich, then wandered the antique bike show looking at the bikes and searching for some buddies from the Houston BMW Club. Never did find the friends, but saw lots of cool bikes.

We headed out of Luckenbach and tried out a few new roads (thanks, Butler maps!) on our way back to Leakey – Grapetown Road, Grape Creek Road, Bear Creek Road and Cedarpoint Road. Lots of cattle guards, but other than that, all good roads and something a little different from the usual Hill Country fare. We also really enjoyed Highway 16 south of Fredericksburg into Medina and 337 back into Leakey (although new chip seal left it a bit gravelly for my full comfort). A less-than-inspired meal back in Leakey and then it was back to the rental for some of that great Bordeaux and Jaws on the incredibly tiny TV in our rental.

Quick side note – every time we saw a sign or talked about Medina or Luckenbach, those songs would pop into my head. I got so frustrated with trying to remember the words to Funky Cold Medina that I finally Googled them and discovered I wasn’t crazy — that song and Wild Thing, both by Tone Loc, are the same exact song with different lyrics. I kept mixing them up and kept thinking, “these are the same tune!” Sure ’nuff.

Headed back to Houston now. Our beautiful weekend is over, as it’s already feeling more humid as we pass south of San Antonio.  Now if I can just get Funky Cold Medina and Luckenbach, Texas out of my head. They were playing on a loop all weekend whenever we would see a sign for either of those towns.

Decided to take advantage of pretty much the best weather Texas has to offer — mid 70s, no humidity and not a cloud in the sky — and head over to the the Hill Country for a little moto riding.

Trailered over to Leakey, arrived about noon.
Checked into our lovely little cabin (thanks Frio Springs Lodges!) and marinated some steaks for dinner. Then headed out for a few hours of gorgeous riding on arguably the best of the famed Twisted Sisters — 337. Great ride, with a stop in Bandera for a quick snack.

Back at the cabin, Andy fired up the fire pit to cook the steaks and we cracked open a beautiful bottle of bordeaux. The view from the patio is fantastic, and we watched deer wander along the river, heard wood peckers and just generally enjoyed the great weather. I’m typing this sitting at the patio table, actually. Such a great night!

Last weekend found mom, Misty, Tammy and me in Charleston, SC, on our long-awaited girls’ trip.  Our last one – to Cabo – was seven years ago so this was long overdue. Fortunately, we picked a good weekend. The weather was beautiful … if we’d scheduled for one week later we’d have been impacted by Hurricane Matthew.

Day 1

We arrived Thursday around noon and easily found each other, got our rental car and made our way to our rental house. Let’s just say it was a little off-kilter. Like walk-in-the-front-door-and-stumble-forward-three-feet crooked. It became quite the joke over the course of the weekend. Misty commented, “it leans to the right, like the rest of the family.”  Add a spot or two of black mold and an orange spider to the crookedness, and we felt like we were in a Halloween house. It wasn’t fancy, but it worked.

The biggest challenge to this house turned out to be getting into the driveway. I missed it every. Single. Time.  The first day we learned the roundabout to ge
t back to the driveway on the narrow one-way streets. During this outing, Misty was navigating and asked me to turn right. As I moved into the right lane and turned on my signal, she shouted “abort, abort.”  We were all already cracking up so this became our trip rally cry. Abort, abort!

As would become the norm on this trip, we ate well this first day. Light lunch at Poogan’s Porch followed by a great dinner at Hall’s Chophouse. Both were fantastic!

Day 2

Day two dawned with a long walk and a great breakfast at Toast. It doesn’t get better than huge biscuits and a pitcher of mimosas.
After breakfast, we made our way out to Magnolia Plantation. We spent a great day there, but were a bit surprised when we first arrived to find that the main house was burned down during the Civil War. In fact, most plantations in this area were burned at the end of the Civil War, and the only one left standing today is about a mile away. Drayton Hall was spared that fate because it’s owner put up signs that it was a smallpox hospital, and Union soldiers wanted nothing to do with that so they moved on. Smart!

We mosied back to town, wandered the market, and stopped into Hyman’s to get off our feet and get a drink. If you’re ever in Charleston, you MUST go here. There’s a guy who walks around handing out simply the best hushpuppies I’ve ever tasted. Seriously.  They’re the crack of fried foods.

After a great dinner at Poogan’s Smokehouse, we headed back to our crooked abode and watched old family movies on mom’s iPad. Funny and poignant … dance recitals, birthday parties and Grandma and Don’s wedding.

Day 3

After a quick breakfast at Sweetwater Cafe (so-so), we went on a carriage ride through the city. It was really great and we highly recommend. Such beautiful homes and great history.

We spent the day wandering — market, shopping, a brewery and a dessert cafe. By this point, we were pretty much wearing muumuus because of all the eating we’d done!

After dark, Misty and I talked mom and Tammy into touring the Old Charleston County Jail. No electricity + scary stories = fun.  Our tour guide was very knowledgeable and clearly cares a lot about telling the stories of the jail’s inhabitants. He told us that of the 30 or so tour guides in the company, only three continue to be comfortable going in the jail to give tours. He told a story about one of the former guides who had a brick thrown in her face by an unseen force. He then said “Ginger doesn’t do this tour anymore; she just does the carriage rides.” She had been our tour guide on our carriage ride!  Though they claim many people have seen, felt and heard unexplained things there, we experienced none of that. Which was OK by me.

We ended our last night in Charleston back at Hyman’s for a true meal. Fantastic!! Seriously, you must go.  We sat at a table with Sandra Bullock, Earth Wind & Fire, James Brown, David Lee Roth, Sarah Jessica Parker and Phish. Well … plaques with their names on them. Apparently they had all, at one point, sat at the table we were sitting at. A fun touch.

Day 4

We all hugged and went our separate ways. Great trip in the books!

We took a quick jaunt to the Texas Hill Country this weekend and decided to try some new roads, instead of the usual trip to the 3s.  Biker, his friend Dave and I set out Friday around noon in the blazing Houston heat and were ever so happy to have a cooling rain shower just north of Fayetteville mid-afternoon. The temp dropped 10 degrees to a tolerable mid-80s range and stayed that way as we arrived in Austin to visit Jake for a little home repair project.

Home repairs complete, we took Jake and his girlfriend, Jasmine, out for dinner and reprised one of our favorite pictures from an Arkansas trip a few years ago. This one’s for you, Misty.

Original 2013

Redux 2016

After dinner we headed over to west campus to have a beer, stopping first at Jake’s frat house for a game of beer pong. Jake and some random pledge barely beat the powerhouse team of Biker and Jasmine. Biker quickly got into his old fighting college form, seen here.

The next morning, Biker, Dave and I had superb breakfast tacos (thanks, Taco Deli) and set out to try some new roads. We had a great ride getting out of Austin. I love FM 2222 heading northwest out of Austin for its sweeping curves and dramatic bluffs, and Lime Creek Road offers great curves and views of Lake Travis. From there we wound our way to Marble Falls and up to Llano for lunch, then found some small goat-trail-like roads that took us through the middle of nowhere down to Fredericksburg and into Kerrville for the night. Sunday morning was a quick breakfast at the ever-tasty Cracker Barrel, then the usual trail home. As we hit the outskirts of Houston, we got pounded by some of the biggest drops I’ve ever seen. Made for a wet ride from about Katy to Highway 6.

Two thoughts on this trip overall:

1. The reliance on ride sharing and the shock when it’s not available.  We’ve gotten to be regular users of Uber – it’s great for heading to the airport and for going out to eat when you know you’ll drink and want to be safe. Imagine our surprise to find it’s not available in Austin. Uber and Lyft aren’t there. There are some smaller ride-sharing options, but we didn’t know enough about them, plus there were five of us which would make for a tight ride. So we actually rode a bus to go to the frat house and get back to Jake’s. A bus!  I haven’t ridden a city bus in  … well, ever. Seriously, ever.  Then, in Kerrville, we asked the hotel desk to call a cab for us, knowing we would drink margaritas at the restaurant and not wanting to ride the bikes back to the hotel. There is exactly one cab in all of Kerrville. One. And when the lady showed up, there was a baby in the backseat. I’m not kidding.
   See pic of me, Dave and said baby. He was a sweetie. But c’mon. That’s weird, right?
2. The importance of Velcro in motorcycling. It’s everywhere. It’s all over the clothes, it closes my boots fully, it holds the radar detector onto the bike, etc. I started to wonder how Velcro was invented. Was it what the inventor was TRYING to do? Or was it a happy accident? So I Googled it. Here’s what you need to know … In 1948, Swiss engineer and amateur mountaineer George de Mestral went hiking in the woods with his dog. Upon arriving back at his home, he took note of the burrs that clung to his clothes and he wondered if such an idea could be useful in commercial application. He studied a burr under a microscope and discovered that they were covered in tiny hooks, which allowed them to grab onto clothes and fur that brushed in passing. After more than eight years of research and work, he created what is known now today as Velcro, a combination of the words “velvet” and “crochet.” Made up of two strips of fabric, one covered in thousands of tiny hooks and the other with thousands of tiny loops, the materials gripped together firmly while still allowing easy release. While de Mestral’s invention became the source of much ridicule early in its inception, his perseverance allowed him to perfect the hook-and-loop technology for commercial use. He patented Velcro in 1955, and its popularity was set when NASA started using the product for all kinds of things, which led to Velcro’s popularity in all circles of life. So there you go.

That’s it for now. Another trip later this month. Happy travels!