Alien (legal) ROMEO's invade the RGV

[Tumbleweed]

Well, Roger Shores the Rounder (year around rider) and Jerry Matson (new Texan) made it to Joe Cotton's BBQ in Robstown Friday and were met with about 30 bikes. We had a wonderful lunch. Although, Texas BBQ is not Aurther Bryant's by a fair margin. They never will figure that one out down here. However, we had a great time and caught up on the latest ROMEO happenings. Saturday morning Jerry, Roger and I headed out west to see the hand pulled ferry across the Rio Grande at Los Ebanos and the dam at Falcon Lake then stopped at Zapata for lunch at El Patricio's (talk about a big meal to ride on). We split up at Hebbronville with Jerry headed back to Houston and Roger winging his way north as far as his behind and the weather would carry him. Speaking of weather it was 80 degrees when we split up and partly cloudy with light winds from the South. They both took lots of pictures and I am sure they will share them when they get home and settled.I had a wonderful time with them both and look forward to riding with the ROMEO's in Kansas and Missouri this spring. -Tumbleweed

[JerryM100]

Bill,

It was great to see you again, this time in your winter home. What a great time we had meeting everyone at lunch. I was only 225 miles from my place in Houston, while Roger rode 900 miles to get there! I will attach a few pics that I took.

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At lunch we decided we would come on down to McAllen and ride with you on Saturday. But some of the guys suggested that we take a tour of the Corpus Christie coast which we did. We headed toward Corpus and then to Padre Island, then north to Mustang Park and on up to Port Aransas. There we took an access road to the beach and got some pics of our bikes on the sandy beach in the 80 degree sun! It was awesome! We were pinching ourselves - is this for real??!!

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We rode the ferry across and headed back north to Sinton and back on highway 77 south. That little loop took us 2 and a half hours to get back to Robstown where we had lunch! We got gas and left at 4:30 pm to head down to McAllen - 2 hours south.

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We stayed overnight in Weslaco and met you for breakfast at the hotel. We enjoyed you leading us through McAllen and on up to Los Ebanos to see the hand-pulled ferry, then on up to the Falcon Lake Dam. From there we went on up to Zapata where we had lunch. What a nice tour through south Texas, very interesting country!

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Here is a YouTube video of how they pull the ferry by hand across the Rio Grande.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVprNkzWhMI

We decided we needed to make our way to our respective homes so you led us up highway 16 to Hebbronville. That's where we split up - you headed home, Roger headed north to San Antonio then Waco, and me headed home to Houston. Roger made it to Waco about 7 pm and that's about when I got home as well.

On Friday I rode a total of 477 miles at the end of the day, and by the time I got home on Saturday I had ridden 484 miles. I can't wait to see Roger's ride report when he gets back to Kansas City!

What a whirlwind tour it was but it was awesome to have lunch with all the South Texas Romeos and to go riding with you.

Thanks again to everyone we met, hope to meet y'all again on the road someday, somewhere.


Jerry
Web Site Admin
Houston, TX

[TomK]

DEAR JERRY,

We don't want to see any more pictures of you in short sleeves standing on the beach with your stupid bike or hearing that it is 70 or 80 or whatever! OK?

In all JEALOUSY!
Tom K

[shoresr]

Last week while sitting by the fire, looking at snow outside and reading about nothing on the internet, but about rides being cancelled or postponed, I thought, wouldn’t it be nice to go have lunch with the Texas Romeos!! They were meeting in Robstown, TX a lot further north than usual and that would make the ride significantly shorter.(?) A quick check on google maps showed that it was only 900 miles to Robstown. I posted my silly idea on the web hoping someone might ride along with me, but no one else was crazy enough. Since their lunch was on Friday (1/28/11) at eleven, I saw no reason to make it to Robstown in one day. I sent an email to Jerry who had just moved to Houston and asked him if he would like to go to lunch with me. He had not had time to meet the Romeo group and was excited about riding down to Robstown with me.
That did it; I left Leawood at eight in the morning on Wednesday. It was 22 degrees and it didn’t get above freezing until I reached Oklahoma City. Melissa had given me a new Gerbing heated liner for Christmas so I wasn’t too worried about the cold. After replacing the third fuse in Wichita I gave up and never got the “damn” thing to work. Naturally, because I had “state of the art” heated gear I didn’t take my usual bundle of clothes, so I nearly froze, but it did get warmer and warmer the further south I went, and by the time I got to Waco, TX in was 66 and all was forgotten or thawed, almost….
[attachment=1]Romeo Texas 2011 002.JPG[/attachment]
Thursday I had planned on going to San Antonio to see their famous River Walk and the Alamo, but while lying in a steaming hot bath trying to thaw out I start dreading the trip home, so I thought I had better devote so time to getting my heated gear working. A ha, a Gerbing/Honda dealer in El Campo, TX, halfway to Robstown and a good meeting place for Jerry.

Before leaving Waco I did a riding tour of Baylor University. I was truly impressed with the facilities at Baylor. The buildings were red brick and looked brand new. The campus is very large and is laid out very efficiently. I had two meals at my favorite Czech Bakery in West, TX., then I headed to El Campo. The Gerbing dealer was very helpful and after my jacket blew the fuses in his demo unit on the display floor we determined that the jacket was indeed defective. Naturally, he didn’t have a replacement jacket in my size… but he was nice enough to loan me a jacket for the trip home. Now the trip home was looking a lot better. I even bought a pair of insoles. (Gary, he didn’t have the heated socks).

Jerry showed up at the appointed time, we chatted over coffee then headed off on the 154 mile ride to Robstown. I couldn’t get enough of the sun and warm weather. When we arrived Bill “tumbleweed” and “Sweet” William were already there waiting for us. Nobody did an accurate count, but it was great to meet some 30-60 new and old friends. Jerry and I in our “safety” green Romeo shirts definitely stood out in the crowd.
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I told Jerry I couldn’t be this close and not see the Gulf of Mexico, so after lunch he planned a route. We rode thru Corpus Christi and across the bridge onto the island of North Padre.

“Located just south of Corpus Christi, Padre Island National Seashore consists of more than 130 thousand acres of undeveloped dunes, grasslands and sandy beaches. The Seashore, which takes up the vast bulk of North Padre Island, is the longest stretch of undeveloped barrier island in the entire world!
Unlike most beaches, Padre Island National Seashore allows visitors to drive on its sandy beaches to access remote areas of the park. The Seashore also provides beachcombers plenty of chances to collect shells and build sandcastles.”
We rode the entire length of the island. You can see in our pictures that we rode right down to the water. As Jerry said “we have to pinch ourselves to make sure we aren’t dreaming”. After basking in the sun and riding on the beach we ferried our bikes back to the mainland. This was certainly a highlight of my trip and I thank Jerry for taking the time to show me around.

“Tumbleweed” had offered to take us for a ride on Saturday and he stays in Weslaco when he is in Texas, so we headed off again. Although it was late in the day and we had put in quite some miles the last 150 or so miles from Sinton, where we got off the ferry to Weslaco was the most worthless piece of real estate either one of us had ever seen in our lives!! ….and 1 mile seemed like 2 miles!!! But a nice motel and a “cervaza” fixed everything.

Bill “Tumbleweed” gave us the grand tour of the Rio Grande Valley. Due to the killing on Falcon Lake and our bad economy an already poor area looked even worse. Bill said crossing the border into Mexico for cheap food, duty free items and riding in the mountains were major attractions of the area, but with all the border problems most tourists are scared to go into Mexico.

After the best Mexican meal I had ever had we went our separate ways. Bill back to Weslaco, Jerry to Houston and I was headed to the Alamo. I got to San Antonio about four Saturday afternoon. I wanted to see the Alamo and the River Walk. Yes, I got to see them, but it was so crowded I couldn’t stop my motorcycle long enough to take a picture. I rode around for thirty minutes trying to find a place to park and gave up and head for Waco to begin the 626 mile trip home.

When I awoke on Sunday morning at six o’clock is was 66 degree and it had sprinkled during the night. Melissa had told me about the impending ice/snow storming that was suppose to start in Kansas City on Monday and told me I had better “boogie” on home. I’ll tell you, it is not easy to put on long underwear and multi layers of clothing in 66 degrees heat. I stopped at my favorite Czech Bakery again to pick up some fresh Kuliches to take home and they laughed….here I look like the Pillsbury “doughboy” and they are in shorts!! I told them I was planning on being in Kansas City by 3:30, and they said “are you flying out of DFW?” You should have seen the look on their faces when I told them I was riding a motorcycle and it was 22 degrees in Kansas City.

Oh well, then I plugged in the Gerbing headed liner and heated insoles and nothing worked. This time they didn’t even blow the fuses. I made it home at six Sunday night, froze to death. My right foot hasn’t thawed out yet

A really big thanks goes out to Jerry, Bill, “Sweet” William and all my new Texas Romeos friends for all their hospitality and making me feel so welcome. It was a wonderful trip. Left on Wednesday, returned on Sunday, 5 days 2,458 miles.

Ride safe and stay warm,
Roger

Here is a link to all my pictures:

http://picasaweb.google.com/twowheels2e ... directlink