Zia Rider Blog

They say everything is bigger in Texas (except for those tiny dog sized deer).    The theme of today seemed to be oversized things, starting with this giant walking stick bug!

It was under the table at breakfast and knowing Cece with unusual critters she had to get it to crawl on her hands.  When it got on her sleeve it ran up her arm and around the back of her neck in a flash and surprised her at how fast it was as you can tell by this hilarious picture.

Had to get gas for the morning ride and we saw this.  Texas limo or just someone with a really big family?

For lunch at Bandara we got to watch the chaos and ensuing traffic jam when someone tried to drive a dump truck bucket that took up two lanes through town forcing a big 5th wheel trailer to have to reverse all the way through town as well.     You’d think something like this would have an escort.

Today we rode a bit of the famous Three Sisters roads in the Texas Hill Country and had to stop at the Lone Star Motorcycle Museum on the way.

One thing that I noticed about the roads in this area was that most were fun high speed sweepers with a few very sharp switchbacks thrown in with little to no warning to keep you on your toes when the roads descended into a ravine or crossed a ridge.  Riders get so focused on going fast through the gentile stuff that they are unprepared for that sharp corner out of the blue and in our couple of times here we’ve seen a handful of bikes off the road including one 30 or 40 feet down a cliff just outside Hamilton Pool on a later trip not to mention the skid marks going into nearly every sharp corner.  Nothing like a 180 degree switchback to jolt you back to reality after drifting off into a dream of motorcycle nirvana.

Our route was mostly sweepers and nothing too technical, still some riders lagged behind and got separated.  The museum itself is just a metal warehouse looking building with nothing else around and easy to miss.  One rider blew right past us at full speed, there was no catching him.

For being a bit isolated way out here the museum was pretty interesting with many unique pieces I’d never seen before and a couple of high dollar motorcycles.  If you are out in the Texas Hill Country it’s well worth the trip to stop by and check it out.

They have a rather nice collection to browse through and the guys up front were really helpful with a map to give us some ideas of where to go for the remainder of the day.

We were going to eat once we got back to town at some BBQ joint they knew about so none of us ate at the little museum diner.  After a long day riding the sisters and then looking at all the awesome motorcycles I imagine this would be a good place for a rest and a bite to eat.

I’ve never seen what our bike looks like from the front, I think the triangle of lights does make it a bit more visible than the passing lamps that blend into the headlight and are less distinguishable.  Thanks for all the pics Mark & Paige and Nick.

We had such a good time fishing yesterday and the crew enjoyed talking to Cece that they offered us a discount to go again the next day.  Unfortunately it was windy and rough seas that morning and we didn’t get to go out again.   Instead we went shopping around the island that morning and tried another go at some bay fishing in the afternoon.

Texas has triggerfish?

It was very cool when Cece pulled up this triggerfish, I thought they mainly lived where there was coral.  This one is rather ugly compared to the clown triggerfish I used to take care of back in high school.   If you don’t know where they get their name from, that spine at the top of their head locks in place to secure themselves in holes and to make them harder to eat but if you press the second spine down (the trigger) the top one will unlatch.

This one was too small and had to be thrown back.  I’ve never heard of eating triggerfish anyway I’m not sure if I’d have wanted to keep it even if it was big enough. It’d feel like eating an ugly cousin of one of my pets.

What are these things called?  Strange looking fish with a giant eye.

We didn’t seem to have much luck the second day with the bay fishing.   We only seemed to catch these poisonous toadfish I think they were called.   Others caught a small stingray and a few small gafftopsail and hardhead catfish.   We still had fun getting to go out on the water a second day.

Coast Guard

Competition down the road did not go out either today.

The triple hull Polly Anna shrimp boat

 

 

When we motored up to Dolphin Dock Deep Sea Fishing in Port Aransas a couple of the workers came outside to greet us.  They recognized the sound of the bike and knew it had to be that motorcycle couple from New Mexico again lol.  Out of how many tourists they must see every day it’s neat that they would remember us.  I guess we did sit and talk with everyone for hours last year waiting to see if we could go out before they called it and we ended up going bay fishing later in the day.

This year the weather was better and at least the first day we got to go out for Cece’s first deep sea fishing adventure!

Bait almost looks too good to throw to the fishes, that looks like some real good sashimi right there!

First catch of the day was a 93 pound Wahoo!   This should’ve been my fish, the deck hand threw out a line as we were slowing down and hooked it then looked for me to hand me the pole to reel it in.   I had just stepped away to get a picture of Cece so they handed the pole to the next closest guy, darn it!     Oh well, the fish is a beauty! and a good omen for the day.

Cece’s first catch of the day, a very nice red snapper!   Too bad they were out of season for a few more weeks and it had to be thrown back.

We had a bit of excitement when we all had out lines in waiting for someone to get a bite when BOOM something hit my line and the reel started spinning out out so fast it was smoking. The reel stopped and the thick deep sea pole about doubled over in half, it was all I could do to hang onto it and POP! the line snapped!  We have no idea what the hell it was only that it was huge!  After that my reel was seized it wouldn’t crank in or let out anymore, whatever it was had broken my pole!

New fishing pole.  By now people were catching good sized dog snapper all around the boat but I put my line back at the same depth that I had last time.  After a bit of a wait something hit my line just as hard as before, this time it stayed on longer than 20 seconds.  My pole looked like it was going to snap, whatever I’d hooked was pulling a hell of a lot harder than that 93 pound wahoo!  After fighting it for 20 minutes I was getting freaking winded.  I needed to adjust my grip and just barely touched the bottom of the pole to the railing so I could adjust my grip and snap the line went again.

Just then a deck hand finally ran up to give me a hand and said yep don’t touch it to the railing!  sorry we should have gotten you a belt.   Oh well, good to know the railing tip for next time.

Shortly after my second broken line another guy hooked a monster fish and this time had help from the crew and managed to pull in this shark that was let go.

All in all we had a good time and Cece had a lot of fun and now wants to come back and go again!

Our haul for the day.

Cece holding up our pair of atlantic sharpnose sharks.  These are full grown and good eating!

Dolphin Docks does a great job cleaning the fish afterwards if you’d like here is what that wahoo looked like afterwards.

Since we were on the bike we bought a box of ziplock bags and you put a few pieces of fish in with a little bit of water and burp out all of the air.  Then it can be blast frozen with Dolphin Docks freezer and shipped back home.

I didn’t have time to call my neighbor who took delivery of the fish.  He said he got home one day to find a giant box and couldn’t remember what he’d bought then opened it up, wow fish!

 

95 pound fiance posing with 93 pound fish LOL

Good haul for the boat that day.

Went to the beach today after getting fishing tickets for tomorrow and going through some swimwear and t-shirt shops in town.

Crabs were everywhere!  Many different kinds too, only got decent pictures of 4 species.  Never seen so many different kinds in one place.

Ghost crabs live on land, there are burrows for these everywhere in the sand near the water.   Cece had never seen one before so I tried to dig one of the smaller ones up, the bigger burrows are wayyy too deep.   That burrow was empty but we got lucky and found a few walking around on the way back to the bike.

The blue crabs were rather feisty.  If a shadow went over the water while they were.. ahem, busy.. the males would snap their claws out of the water and splash.   The first one surprised and scared Cece so badly she screamed and fell backwards, almost completely off the rocks into the water, then I almost fell in the water from laughing so hard.

Cece holding a baby hermit crab we found.  When it came back out of its shell it started trying to graze on her hand and trying to pinch and pull algae off her palm.  “Ow ow ow! Hurry up and take the picture!”

Lots of hermit crabs in the rock jetties.

Stone crab?