(Click the map to enlarge it.)

I left work a bit early to try and get out of town as early as possible:
 

I should have known I would leave right at the peak of rush-hour traffic.  Idiot.  But I was ready to go.  I took the HOV lane out I-10 west.  You should have known there would be an RV involved in an accident blocking up the lane.  It was hot, and I was stuck.  Bastardos.

After I got moving again, I got the joy of experiencing a sever cross wind for about 150 miles.  Ugh.  I knew it had to get better.

About 137 miles into the journey, the wind had aggravated me to the point I decided to take a break, fill up with gas, check my map, call the wife, blah blah blah. 

After that I simply pressed on to San Antonio, Bandera, Leakey, Camp Wood, and finally our camp ground at Ledgewater (N 29º 50.235', W 100º 06.405'). 

It took me until 1:30 in the morning to cover the 340 miles.  Pathetic, I know, but I had an excuse. 

Deer. 

Gazillions of them everywhere.  I literally had to ride 30 mph for much of the journey to avoid them. 

There was a lot of nothing out there as well.  I spotted a sign for a motorcycle museum not knowing I would get to visit it during the adventures of the weekend (more below). 

I also managed to snap a picture of one deer while I was stopped because another ran in front of me.  You can just make out the figure in the picture, but the eyes are unmistakable... SLOW DOWN!:
 

Once I arrived at the camp, I found Darren, Steve and Joel all waiting up and worried about me.  After they made sure I was OK, we all turned in a went to sleep.

I opened my tent, got out and looked around a bit. I found some "leftovers" from the previous night... (prior to my arrival):
 

Here Darren demonstrates proper ATGATT:

Darren made us breakfast tacos, after which we set out to do some exploring and firewood gathering:
 

As you can see, Ledgewater is a nice place.  An extremely nice place actually.

We continued our morning by goofing off and general bullshitting:
 

It took us a while to get going, but we eventually got on the road and did some riding.  We tried to make a loop through Rock Springs, but ended up not being able to access some of the posted county roads because the farmers/ranchers had gated the paths. 

After some calculations and figuring, we decided to had back into Rock Springs, have a look around, and get something to eat at King Burger:
 

After King Burger, we headed out again to return to our camp site and prepare dinner.  We did make a stop at the local grocery store where Joel and I pondered the meaning of life:

The journey back to the camp site was extremely twisty, so we made the most of it:
 

We did make a stop or two... to smell the roses... life is short you know...

This is what I look like in your rearview mirror... and what I look like shortly thereafter:
 

When we arrived back at the camp, it was pretty hot.  If a rope swing and a tree is good enough for little kids, it's good enough for us!  We spent a considerable amount of time cooling off in the river (who would have know the very next day would be freezing cold and raining): 
 

The rest of the group, Scott, Robert, Jake, and Michael showed up at the camp just in time for dinner:
 

It seemed to us one of the motorcycles was significantly different from the rest, but nope, it could traverse a hill just like us, but it sure did look bigger:

Well, there was wood, fire, alcohol, testosterone... all for the makings of something fun! 

Scott quickly went to work by putting a couple of small logs on it to keeps us warm.  After all, it was in the mid 90s and cooling off fast:
 

This is the picture Joel does not want his wife to see.  Joel, $5 and I take it off the site! :-)

We had fire, and alcohol, but there was something missing... whatever could it have been?

FOOD!
 

Darren went above and beyond and prepared us a delicious dinner.  Absolutely outstanding!

Dusk came quickly.  Tired, we all set out to find our spot by the fire as the sun set:

Before getting too cozy, I captured a few pictures of the setting sun:
 

... and scenery around our camp:
 

We ended up riding about 100 miles and eating about 100 pounds of food.  Not bad for a days work!

Once the rain stopped, we bundled up the best we could, crouched around the coals of the previous night's fire and had some left-overs from dinner. 
 

I'm of the opinion Steve does not like cold weather:

Fortunately for us, it didn't take long for the rains to go away and the temperature to become simply perfect. 

We took off down the road and headed to the motorcycle museum.  What a fantastic ride to a fantastic place.  The road was twisty through the hills.  Motorcycles were everywhere... and rightfully so... it was perfect outside!

As part of the money we paid for the Wrenching Rally, we got to go to the motorcycle museum.  I snapped several pictures, had a nice lunch and spent time chatting with all of my new friends:
 

We all gathered in the parking lot and told lies before heading out on the next leg of our adventure:
 

We decided we needed to find some off-the-beaten-path places to ride. 

Poor Robert... he was so sick.   He had apparently gotten food poisoning and had been puking his guts out all weekend.  As such, he decided not to join us on the off-road part of this journey.  He, Scott and Michael headed back to camp while the rest of us set off to explore the unknown. 

It didn't take us long to find what we were looking for... 

Many of the county roads were unpaved and some were in poor shape.  Perfect. 

We had a few water crossings, opened a few gates to access the county roads, stopped for photos, and raced about like hoodlums:
 

I even took a second to "strike a pose."

The wild game farms were quite interesting to see in the middle of Texas.  Within the boundaries of the over-sized fences were many animals indigenous to Africa.  I guess if you have nothing better to do with your money, why not ship a giraffe or two to Texas:
 

Arriving back at the camp, Darren gave out some door prizes.  I ended up winning the biggy--a dial caliper.  But, since I already had one in my toolbox at home, I gave it to Darren as a "thanks" for putting together the Wrenching Rally:
 

Speaking of wrenching...

... the reason some came to Ledgewater in the first place was to wrench.  Even though we did very little, we did do some:
 

And, like the brave men who walked the ground before us, we built another fire:

Off to bed...

Essentially the ride was uneventful, but the scenery was outstanding:
 

I was just about to the farm when I spotted this:

It was an old farm house that was simply beautiful.  I still do not know what happened, but what a sad ending for such an old place.  Kind of ironic that the title of Darren's story is "Will It Burn."  Apparently it will.

I stayed the night at the farm with the fam and headed back to Houston the following day.  I arrived at my garage door with exactly 1,001 miles. 

1,001 miles and 1,001 smiles.  There's definitely worse ways to spend a four-day weekend!

Thanks again to everyone for everything.  I had a great time... looking forward to next year!

Thanks for coming along on my ride.