So here we are now, at the final installment of this grand adventure. I had reserved two counties as “the icing on the cake”.
Number 253, the penultimate, is Travis County, where Austin, the state capital, is located.
Number 254, the final county, is my home county of Hays County.
Despite over 14,500 miles covered, nine months of travel, and 252 counties successfully visited, wouldn’t you just know that the cosmos would administer a kick in the butt at the very end!
But we aren’t there yet… Let’s turn our attention to…
County 253 – Travis County – Austin – Sunday, 28 October 2018
Now while the world at large seems to have been largely underwhelmed by all the effort I have put into doing, and then documenting, this crazy enterprise, my young friend Jefe Greenheart, wizard and co-proprietor of Circus Picnic…
…has been very interested. He and his wife, my honorary daughter Kelly Greenheart nee Schiller, have visited and adventured with my family and me all over the world, and they offered to come out and record some audio, video, and still images of both parts of the grand finale. They came out to Wimberley and took pictures and then followed me in to Austin, where we were going to take pictures in front of both the Travis County courthouse, and the State Capitol. And, then shoot some drone flight footage of me driving the Enfield across the Congress Avenue Bridge.
We did all of that, and here is the penultimate courthouse photo:
In due course there will be additional material put on this page after Jefe and Kelly have done the edits, but for the moment let this serve as proof that I did get to the courthouse…and to the Capitol…
You’ll notice that there is only a helmet, not a motorcycle! Despite Jefe’s and my best efforts, the guard on duty at the Capitol would not allow us to include the motorcycle in the photo. We could not attempt from the other side because there was a Book Fair going on, but I’m not going to give up so easily. Expect an update with the Royal Enfield and me in front of the Capitol.
From here we went to do the drone shoots over the Congress Ave bridge – if we got anything good, it’ll appear here in due course…
Postcript for Travis County
The light was not optimal for the Travis County courthouse shot, and the police did not allow us to get a Capitol shot with the bike. The occasion of a glorious, sunlit, warm winter day gave me the chance to go back to Austin, different bike, and re-shoot the courthouse and the Capitol.
That turned out to be a good intuition. These pix are more flattering to the courthouse and the Capitol. With regard to the Capitol photo, I managed to get it set up and shot JUST BEFORE the police arrived to instruct the removal of the bike from that spot. I graciously did it, exulting inside that I had gotten the photo that was denied the first time around:
County 254 – Hays County – San Marcos – Tuesday, 30 October 2018, and Thursday, 1 November 2018
Somehow or another I have managed to be a property owner in Hays County for almost 6 years without knowing, or having any curiosity about, why this county is named Hays. Well, this 254 county adventure turned out to be edifying in more ways than one.
It turns out that Hays County is named for Captain John Coffee Hays – “Jack” – originally from Tennessee. Jack Hays came to Texas in 1836, just in time for the fight for Texas’ independence from Mexico. He was appointed by Sam Houston to the Texas Rangers, and though he only wound up spending 13 years in Texas before heading to California, where he died at the ripe old age of 66, he had a HUGE (not yuge) impact on Texas history, for several reasons:
First, he fought – very sucessfully – in practically every major battle in the conflicts between Mexico and Texas during the period (1836-1846) when Texas was a Republic.
Second, he recognized the value in battle of a new invention by Samuel Colt – the revolving cylinder handgun. Colt had been unable to interest the US military in his invention, but Hays and his compadre, Samuel Walker, got their hands on some samples and eventually worked with Sam Colt to produce the legendary “Walker” Colt, the original six-shooter of the American West.
Third, he combined the advantage of the repeating sidearm with a relentless resolve to out-Comanche the Comanche, meaning to basically adopt hit-and-run guerilla tactics, while offsetting the rapid-fire advantage the Comanche had previously had by being able to shoot more arrows than an Anglo could fire with the cumbersome one-shot muzzle-loader that preceded the Colt revolver.
Jack Hays basically reversed the losing tradition of both the US Army and the Texas Rangers of that time by fighting the Comanche with an improved (with Colts) variation of Comanche tactics. For a few years (while Hays was active), the tables, which had greatly favored the Comanche, were turned. The Comanche came to fear Hays like they had feared no other Anglo, Ranger or otherwise.
Fortunately for the Comanche, when Hays went to California the Anglo fighting forces lapsed back into their more comfortable but less effective “sally forth and give the appearance of due diligence” tactics. The Comanche regained their pre-eminence on the Texas Plains and kept the Anglo invasion at bay for another 20 years.
Notwithstanding now being part of the now uninterrupted “corridor” along I35 between Austin and San Antonio, San Marcos still has the advantage of being on the crystal-clear San Marcos River, so you can at least still tube there…
But the preceding rambling is just to underscore the fact that Hays County was not a great choice for the end of the grand adventure because I happen to live here, but also because it has major historical antecedents that put it on par with just about any other county in Texas.
Back to the story. On the 30th of October, Jefe Greenheart and his father-in-law/my best friend Laren Schiller came out to Wimberley for the grand finale, which was to be ridden on my 1941 Triumph 350, which 2 weeks earlier had won second place in the Vintage Bike Show in Luckenbach, Texas. Here in all her glory:
Now in truth I had never ridden the ’41 as far as San Marcos and back – it is after all a 77 year-old bike. But it was running beautifully while we shot drone footage out here in my rural neighborhood, so I set off for San Marcos by taking the long way, which is up and over the Devil’s Backbone, one of the legendary twisty-curvy roads of the Texas Hill Country. Jefe and Laren were following along, cameras in tow, as I began the ascent up to the Devil’s Backbone ridge. The engine started sputtering, and I thought maybe it was starved for fuel. After it died, we spent half an hour of “old school” motorcycling, by which I mean I would fiddle with the motor, then jump on the kick-starter, then fiddle some more… Well, it never started and the three of us were able to manhandle the ’41 into the back of Jefe’s minivan (the horror!!) and with me squeezed in beside it to hold it upright, we ignominiously retraced our steps back back to my house. After getting the bike out of the minivan (cringe), I thought to give it one more try, and of course it started up on the first crank… That’s exactly how I remember most of my early years of motorcycling… Here, for your amusement at my expense, are some scenes from the Backbone:
Well, since the following day was Halloween, it looked like I’d have to head off to Thailand for my visa renewal on the 2nd ONE COUNTY SHORT of my grand design.
Well, I got a message from Jefe the next day telling me that he was doing a video shoot in San Marcos on the afternoon of 1 November, and we agreed to give it one last desperate chance.
Having learned my lesson (however temporarily), I loaded the ’41 Triumph on the bike trailer and (the shame!!) trailered it to San Marcos town, where I parked the truck and trailer and THEN rode the ’41 into the center of town, from where we were able to capture this final triumphant image!
And so ends, after almost nine months, 14,490 miles, and all 254 counties of Texas, this great adventure that was my 70-year birthday present to myself.
There will be one final post reflecting on the experience, and “the meaning of it all”.
Thanks for riding along, if you’ve made it this far…
Norman (Sandy) Sanders – 29 November 2018