Yesterday got up past 50° F. I didn't have anything to do besides walk a friend's dog and an interview in Corporate Woods (where I heard an interesting anecdote I'll post about later) at 16:00. So I decided to get up off my ass, tear myself away from Mr. Do! and Neo Mr. Do! (I &heart; MAME) and put some miles under me on my motorcycle.
I needed to run by the post office on 63rd, and the dog I was walking was near Loose Park, so I decided to go south. I hit 71 Highway after the post office with the thought that I might go down near Longview Community College - my wife's attending LCC right now, and I've been wanting to just meander around that area for a while. But then I saw the sign for Bannister Road, and the allure of The Dead Mall was too powerful to resist.
I got off 71 highway and on to Bannister Road, hoping to find something interesting along the way. And I did, a bit - I passed right by the ginormous walled city that is the Federal Complex. I didn't think the guard at the gate would take too kindly to "It looked neat, and I wanted to have a look around" as a reason for being there (though I did successfully use that once at an air force base) so I regretfully passed on by.
Next I came to the Valero station at Lydia and Bannister. This looked promising; it looked a bit undeveloped past the gas station, and there were some pleasant curves to the road. Eagerly, I turned down Lydia only to find "Lindenwoods", a depressingly suburban subdivision. I tooled around there for a good ten minutes, trying to find my way out without retracing my steps (because where's the fun in that?). Unfortunately, I was unsuccessful.
By this point I had decided that all I could expect if I continued west was more urban sprawl, so I decided to turn around and head east along Bannister. Eventually, I came to Blue River Road. I seemed to recall that I had been down this way in the car at one point, and had always meant to try Blue river Road on two wheels. I figured now was as good a time as any, and turned down Blue River Road. Good choice.
Blue River Road must be scenic as hell in the spring and summer. There were trees arching over the road almost the entire way, along with those peculiar rock faces I only see in this area. At one point (just a bit south of Martha Truman Road) I saw a frozen waterfall that I just had to get a picture of.
Blue River Road is curvy, but not to the degree that it's lots of fun unless you're doing a pretty consistent 60-70 miles per hour (and I definitely was not.) That said, I did manage to find a couple of curves that I got a good lean angle on. With the reasonably pleasant weather, it was a nice bit of riding. Unfortunately, it ended all too soon - Blue River Road isn't more than a couple of miles long.
Pictures to come in the next post.
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