Our Labor Day W/E Ride

[martywj]

I haven't posted much over on this board very much so I thought I would correct that. Here is a ride report I did recently. Hope you enjoy?

We had a three day weekend coming up so what else to do but ride. We decided to ride down south to Bay City, Texas to see Kathy’s Mom. She is 83 or 84 years old and in a nursing home. We decided to take the opportunity further our quest of visiting and taking a picture of all of the courthouses in Texas. We also decided work on getting a geo-cache in each county in Texas as well.
Now I am not going to bore you with all of the courthouse and geo-cache pictures. I will just show the more interesting ones and also some of the interesting thing we found at or near each.

Day 1 September 5

We roll out at close to 9:00 AM from Burleson. It wasn’t as early as we had planned, but early enough. Here is the route we will be riding today.



Our first stop is in Waxahachie for our first picture and breakfast at a café on the square.

As you can see from the picture we pulled up on the sidewalk to get this shot. We did this just as one of the Waxahachie PD drove by and just knew we were going to get busted. Kathy thought so too. He drove on slowly and never paid us any mind thinking those bikers are here again. I post this picture because I really like the style of this courthouse which is my favorites. I did not get any pictures of the café or the food. In fact we don’t have a single food pic in this entire thread. I hope it will still qualify as a Two Wheeled Texans ride report? The café I am referring to is located on the SW corner of the square. After a hardy breakfast we ride on and I took this as we cross Cedar Creek Lake.


Our next stop is the Henderson County courthouse in Athens. A very stately looking structure.

I took this shot of a mural near the site of a geo-cache we found.

I think someone on a motorcycle is following me.

I snapped this as we were coming into Palestine for the Anderson County courthouse.

No mistaking what this is!!

Lady Justice is watching over everything.

We rode on to Crockett for the Houston County courthouse. We found this neat site going for a geo-cache a few blocks away from the courthouse square back off the main road.



That is the neat thing about geo-caching. Had we not been looking for the cache we would have never seen this interesting location and sculpture.
We rode on to the Trinity County courthouse in Groveton. We found it was undergoing renovation as we have found with many of Texas older courthouses. We moved on down the road to Huntsville for the Walker County courthouse. We got a nice young couple to take these pictures for us at Sam Houston’s Tomb near there.


Then it was on to Conroe for the last stop of the day at Montgomery County courthouse. We stopped for the night at excellent Hampton Inn, in the Woodlands, that put us in ground floor, king bed, non-smoking room with our bikes parked right outside the door. There was a Red Lobster right next door within 75 yards walking where we had a great dinner. We were set for the evening.

[martywj]

Sunday September 6
We were up and going a bit earlier this morning. After we had breakfast at the hotel we were on the road by 7:30. Here is the route we took today.



Riding through the Woodlands heading for Hempstead,

I think that motorcycle is following me again.

It was very cool and humid on the road this morning you could almost see the water vapor in the air sometimes. We made it Hempstead and got the Waller County courthouse picture. We stopped at this place to find a geo-cache. We had to take a picture of ourselves with the lion to verify our find so out came the tripod.

Oops!

Oops again!

Now that’s better! Back on the road again, but first a stop for a really big COW!

I snapped a pic of Kathy in front.

I thought this was a neat shot of the Fort Bend county courthouse dome in Richmond. The Lady Justice with her scales watching over the proceedings.

This was good shot of the Moore House a historical house and museum nearby.

I liked this view of Lamar and the Lady Justice in the background.

Our next stop was Angleton for the Brazoria County courthouse. We found this there from an old lighthouse that used to be at mouth of the Brazos River.

It started to sprinkle on us while we were there so I put the camera away and we prepared for rain. Just outside Bay City in the rain caught up to us. It came down pretty hard for a bit. As you can see from the picture of the Matagorda County courthouse it was taken in the rain.

We had made our destination so we stopped to visit Kathy’s Mom for a bit. By the time we were ready to ride again the rain had let up and was just a sprinkle again. As we made our way to Wharton it did rain on us some more. By the time we got there the sun was out and it was like being in a steam cabinet. I thought this was a unique Veterans Memorial at the Wharton County courthouse.


We saw this mural on a building across from the courthouse.

Our next stop was the courthouse in Columbus for Colorado County. I thought this was a neat shot of the dome. I made one almost like it in Richmond.

From there we rode on to Bellville for the Austin County courthouse. Then we made a mad dash to Brenham our next stop for the night at the LaQuinta Inn. There was a Denny’s within walking distance for dinner, and another day ended very nicely.

[martywj]

Monday September 7

This is our last day on the road. We are up, packed, have breakfast, and rolling by 8:00 AM. We ride over to get a picture of the Washington County courthouse in Brenham before leaving town. I see this display of a horse drawn fire wagon a couple blocks from courthouse.

The modern day fireman was out testing their rigs also.

I took this along the way heading for Anderson and the Grimes County courthouse.

I missed the turn I was supposed to make but coming to courthouse from the north makes a great picture.

I really like the style of this courthouse.

This was at a Confederate Soldiers Memorial Park nearby.

I took this looking north from the courthouse on Main Street.

I saw this sign on the door of this lawyer’s office, and thought it was funny. Kind of loose office hours don’t you think?

A church near a geo-cache we found.

We encounter a large number of bikers as we riding to here. There was probably a dozen or so, mostly sport-bikes, but a couple of cruisers. They were out of Houston just on a day ride.
We rode on to Madisonville for the Madison County courthouse. Then off to Centerville for us to get a picture of the Leon County courthouse. Next door to the courthouse was this old building.

From the looks of it, we concluded that it was the jail at one time in the past.



After leaving here you could feel the temperature creeping up higher and higher but we pushed on to take a picture of the Freestone County courthouse in Fairfield. At this point it was really HOT. How hot was it? Hot enough to stop at Dairy Queen for a cool one. Then we rode to Corsicana to get a picture of Navarro County courthouse which was our last stop.
We made it to our house in Burleson by around 5:00 PM. We covered 886 miles according to the trip odometer on my GPS. We got to visit a bit with Kathy’s Mom. We also collected photos of 20 courthouses and found 13 geo-caches in 12 different counties. My wife, Kathy, deserves credit for our route. I asked her to keep us on back roads and off the interstates. We were only on the interstate for a couple of miles after leaving Conroe to find a hotel, and from Hillsboro to FM917 just south of Burleson coming home. We had a great time even with encountering the rain storm in Bay City, and the heat wasn’t too bad we just stopped often to re-hydrate ourselves.
I hope you enjoyed the telling of this adventure.

[HurricaneHeather]

Looks like fun! South/East Texas aren't the most interesting roads in Texas, but they still have their perks.

[Particle Man]

awesome! looks like you saw a lot of history and had a good ride!

[Looni2ns]

Almost makes me miss Texas. You meet some really nice folks when you stay off the interstate, and stop in the little towns.

[marko138]

Wow, those are cool pictures. Thanks for sharing.

[zer0t]

great pics and great trip report. Thanks.

[tached1000rr]

good report