Bastrop State Park Review

This Weekend we decided to get away for a little while before Christmas and we visited Bastrop State Park. This is a Park located about 30 miles southeast of Austin and is in an area of the hill country known as the lost pines.
This is a really pretty area in the Winter time because it is still green and the forest floor is covered with a blanket of pine needles and makes walking in the woods quiet.
The real reason for our trip was to ride the 12 mile park road between Bastrop and Buescher State Parks. We rode this route out and back for a ride of about 26 miles including the loop around the parks on both ends. This is a very hilly ride with constant up and down, Make sure your bicycle has the right gears for the climbs. While fairly steep the climbs are not long and the descents are fun, traffic was very light and the narrow winding road was in good condition with the exception of the 3 cattle guard crossings.

Michele rides in the Piney Woods

Sometimes Sprocket our rescue dog thinks he is a sled dog
Since it is Christmas maybe he thinks he is a reindeer

This park also has 2 hiking trails , the Bueshcer trail which is 7.7 miles and another loop at Bastrop of 8 miles. We did the 7.7 miles and saw only one hiker the entire time, very nice trail with gentle climbs and smooth terrain. We plan on returning and hiking the 8 mile lost pines trail next time.

The Town on Bastrop is a trip back in time to small time America and they had the walk on the Colorado River decorated with thousands of lights and every few feet the decorations had a different theme, it was a great Trip

On Christmas we went to my brothers house and about 20 family members were there, after a nice lunch we went to Michele's mother's house for coffee and dessert, it truly was a great Christmas.

Merry Christmas

Dennis and Michele Starkey

Sailing a small boat

Tuesday I did The TEBR with the bike club (Tuesday evening bike ride) and it was a spirited ride. We do various routes ,all after dark so we use lights. I have a strobe taillight and a 10 watt halogen headlight. the 10 watt is OK but the guys with HID light like the night rider brand are maybe 3 times brighter but cost 3 or 4 hundred dollars. Until I can make myself spend that kind on money on a light I just stay close so someone with a good light, if I pick someone faster than I am it is motivation to keep up

During the middle of the week I did get to do some sailing with a small boat. This is a boat I built from a kit some years ago, it is an America's cup miniature called the Victoria. The first time I took it out the motor that controls the rudder came off its mount and I had no control and had to walk to the boat and retrieve it off of the rocks. When this happened I had a visual off this happening on the bigger O'day 272 and how dangerous it could be too loose steering and control off the boat, I was helpless. After the repairs it sailed very good and I could sail it right back to me.
After about an hour of tuning and sailing the boat a couple came over and said they enjoyed watching the remote control sailboat in action and visited with me for a few minute about the boat, that was nice

This weekend we have planned to go to the Austin area and do some hiking and cycling at some of the State Parks in the area.

I am a Pirate 200 years too late

Dennis Starkey

Sunshine at last

I took off work early Thursday and got a nice 30 mile ride in and then on Sunday I met a group of friends for a randonouring ride. In the picture we are heading out of Dallas on the highway 80 service road and are going across the 8 lane I-635 and looked down ----------and this is what we saw. a multi-car crash. What a rotten start to someones Christmas.
We had a great ride on nice country roads on a Sunny 50 degree day for a little over 40 miles. On the way back in the traffic was heavy and we had to stay alert, it was nice to have 7 riders as you are a lot more visible. We took one short restroom and drink stop and finished the ride. Thanks to Paul who took these pictures and is not in any of them. While we were riding Michele rode with her friend Lugay and got in a little over 30 miles and did some pretty hard hill climbs, this along with the Monday night spin classes are making her a strong rider.

On the sailing front the weather has not been conducive for sailing with friends on their boats but I have done some more sanding on the bottom of the O-day 272 and should apply the epoxy repairs and barrier coat after the 1st of the year. I really need 70 degree dry weather to do this, but may have to wait, all because of the delay due to the spring flooding and high water preventing hauling the boat. I guess the longer I am landlocked the more I will appreciate sailing again.

Doing better than I deserve. (if you recognize this statement That I have plagiarised then I must tell you that yes we are.)

Dennis Starkey

Global Warming

We had a great bicycle ride on Saturday with a high in the low 80's, then Sunday morning it started in the 40's and then dropped into the 30's and has been there since.
For the bicycle ride I did the GDBCLUB Airport ride which is about 55 miles plus I ride to the location for some extra miles. At about 20 miles I had a flat tire (first one in 2000 miles) , this is no big deal, I just removed the piece of offending glass,installed a new tube and proceeded to air it up with a co2 cartridge and blew the tire off of the rim exploding the tube with a report like a gunshot. I carefully installed and pressurized my last tube and made it fine the rest of the ride and back home. This is a nice club to ride with and they patiently waited while I changed the tube twice and only received a little grief from the other riders.

Sunday was so wet and cold we started a nice fire and just relaxed and worked some on Christmas stuff. Now I don't really know that much about Global Warming but we do recycle and use the least amount of electricity and water we can. We do this for our pocketbook as well as the environment so it is a win win situation.

Proud People Don't Litter

Dennis Starkey

Boat work and work work continue

Work on the O'day is still going on at a slow pace, what with the weather and the Thanksgiving Holiday. I have been able to install a new 360 degree light on the masthead, the old one had quit working and was so badly crazed it crumbled when I touched it. Since working on the mast is so much easier when it is laying down I also replaced the jib halyard. This was a difficult job as I had to remove the entire top of the mast and push a long hard wire through the mast and then pull the new halyard through. I used an electricians fish tape (used for pulling wire through conduit) to do this and now can fly a Spinnaker or use a head sail other than the one on the roller furling. In a moment of brilliance I had pulled the bitter end of the old halyard into the mast and for the last year or so had been without this halyard.Of course being self employed work still goes on, this is a 30 ton Carrier Packaged Heating and cooling unit with a variable frequency drive, the unit is larger than my truck and was not running.

Let me see, what could it be, man there are a lot of wires and controls in here. This is an ever changing business and old school doesn't work any more.

Over Thanksgiving we had about 20 family members over for lunch and took all the kids to the park on a cold windy day. This picture is of my dad Clyde Thomas Starkey and one of his Great Grandsons Colton Thomas Stone. It was nice to have everyone over, it will also be nice to do this at my brothers house on Christmas.

The bicycle rides have been plagued by bad weather making it hard to get in any miles over the last few weeks. This year our cycling club (GDBCLUB.com) is putting on a weekly spin class and has helped keep up the conditioning, these spin classes are as hard as you want to make them and having other people working with you helps the motivation.

This weekend I decided to go ahead and ride outside and got rained on Saturday in the cold and had 30 mile an hour winds on Sunday afternoon, I still got in 70 miles and just acted like the wind was a long hill climb.

Doing better than I deserve

Dennis Starkey

Mountain Bike rides

It's been a while since i have posted anything but Sprockets dog house is almost complete and I put his name over the door, I think its a nice dog house but Sprocket thinks the house he lives in now is much nicer.Michele and I went to Lake Fairfield State Park and camped out for the weekend of the 10th, we had a nice secluded site and had great weather. We met our camp host who lives full time in a large motor home and travels and volunteers at the State Parks in exchange for free camping. Our accommodations were a bit more rustic but we had a good time riding the miles of park roads and the 15+ miles of mountain bike trails.

Some of the trails were easy and some were pretty hard and crossed live creeks. After Michele walked Sprocket through the park the first time he met some kids and after that when we walked the kids would come out yelling here comes Sprocket, they knew not our names.

Our cycling club has started a new spin class on Monday nights and we both went on the 12th, it was a good workout and was 80 minutes of interval work. Interval work is based on timed efforts at prescribed effort levels of hard, harder, and hardest with short recovery's between sets. We were beat after this class and yet we look forward to this Monday where we will do simulated hill climb training.

On the Sailing front I have started working on the O'day 272 again and have removed the top of the mast to replace the light fixture and install a new halyard that some years ago, that I had accidentally pulled out of the mast.

I was Invited this weekend to hunt on a ranch in Brady Texas and was successful at once again replenishing my nearly exhausted supply of venison. I have some great photos but will spare everyone the dead animal shots. I assure you the meat will go to good use feeding Friends and family.

Happy Thanksgiving

Dennis & Michele

Dog house and dream home

We did the usual bike rides over the weekend and it was a little cool Saturday morning, and it was the last ride before the time change. The Saturday ride will now move to a 9 o'clock start, I much prefer the early start so more of the day is left, but with the colder weather I guess more people like the later start.

This picture is of the dog house I have started building for Sprocket our dog, it will be finished in another week or two and will allow us to get away for a few days at a time without the faithfull companion. As long as he is on good behavior he will still be a mostly inside dog.
We were also invited to some of our freinds lake house on Lake Texoma, they purchased this house and did a lot of work and tree trimming and the result is this view from the living room and patio.
We also hiked a nice loop trail down to the lake and back that is about a mile or so, with half of it up steep hills and half of it down hill. I would love to have a place like this but it's not in the plan unless we hit the lotto.

This weekend we plan on a nice camping trip with the dog and bicycles To Fairfield State Park, we like this park a lot but wanted to try a new one near Austin but they were all full.

Doing better than I deserve

Dennis Starkey

Free concert

Not a lot to write about over the last week or so, Michele had several rides but I only rode the Tuesday night ride. That 21 miles is a weekly low since I started keeping a log. I was also busy with work, which was a good thing, as long as it doesn't last to long or happen too often.

Late Friday afternoon I went to the farm to check on the deer herd and I saw a nice buck Friday evening and a small herd of 6 deer on Saturday. The acorns are falling and it was a good year for mast crops and the ground is covered with the acorns. Since Deer love acorns they are well fed and fat this year. I took a few pictures at the farm but Today blogger will not download my pics.

To make up for lost miles last week,after Church Sunday I rode 36 miles on a really nice day, And I rode 26 miles late Wednesday.

We went to the American Airlines Center again Tuesday night, this time to the Jenifer Lopez concert where we were invited to a suite. This would not be my favorite music but is was a nice show and with VIP parking and seats in a full service suite it was really nice and the price of 0 was also good.

Less is really more

Dennis

Small Steps and good rides

The weather has been good for cycling right up till today, Michele and I have started the night rides, we have been riding the neighborhood so she can get used to riding in the dark and using the halogen headlights we have. I have been doing the club rides and we have gone to downtown Dallas and the Historic West End, we have also ridden around the American Airlines Arena and the new W- hotel area, it's been fun and people seem to think its cool when we ride by the Diners on Patios with our headlights and flashing tail lights.

For the week ending the 13Th I logged 156 miles and the week of the 20Th I logged 90 miles, I expect those numbers to drop as the weather has turned rainy and cold for the next few days.

The O'day is still drying out its hull but I removed the two shelves over the settee's and replaced the water damaged wood, I then stained it and sealed it. I got the color as close as I could and while it is a small detail it looks much better without the water damage.

I can't tell you how this picture got in here 2 times, and I can't make it go away.

I also removed the bilge covers and glued the areas that were separating and put several coats of varnish on them, they are still 20 years old but look much better with a nice shine on them

One of my fellow cyclists who is the preacher at the church we have been attending invited us to a Mavericks basketball game. We had lower level seats and VIP parking passes, the Mavs won and we had a great time with perfect seats, these lower level seats even had a cheering coach for the section.

Right now it's 50 degrees and raining so no boat work for a few days and it may be hard to get a bike ride in too. Oh well I guess I may have to actually do a little work.

Trying to live my dream

Dennis

The State Fair of Texas

Michele had Friday off so we went to the State Fair and it was a perfect day, we went to the K-9 shows and watched dogs race, catch Frisbees and do long distance water jumps. We also went to the birds of the world show and it was cool watching the birds free fly and do tricks. It was impressive to have a large hawk fly close over your head at a about 100 mph. This picture shows Michele outside the first aid station where she was treated for a splinter she got from the wood seats.No Texas fair is complete without visiting Big Tex and hearing him say howdy folks, welcome to the State Fair of Texas.

We then went to Lake Murray Oklahoma to meet the bicycle club and had a great time riding to Turner Falls and back with the Ardmore Bicycle club. These guys (and gals) were strong from all the hills in the area. The turn around point was at a radio antenna up a 2 mile 7% grade. We had a nice turnout of GDB riders (greater Dallas Bicyclists) and had options for those who didn't want 70 miles of hills. I of course did the long ride and with the strong headwind all the way back I was beat. Michele rode strong with her group and they rode 42 miles to the town of Gene Autry and visited the so named museum.

I took this pic while enjoying the rural countryside drafting off of the locals, this was a fun trip. We spent Sunday resting and going to Church where the preacher just happens to be a cyclist also.

Mind your manners

Dennis

This week I finally got out the dinghy and cleaned it up. this is a boat I built using the stitch and glue method. I never used it much as a dinghy but have used it numerous times to fish small lakes and did so this past week but once again I forgot the camera. Oh well that's just as good since there was nothing to photograph but one little bass, but it was nice to get the boat out and work on my rowing.We did the usual bike rides over the weekend and had the last weeknight daylight ride on Tuesday, for the rest of the winter we will be taking night rides with lights on the evening rides. I had a pretty good week and logged in 112 miles.

The O'day is still drying out but I did remove two seat backs from the cabin so I can replace some water damaged plywood that forms shelves behind the seats. It looks like it will be the first of the year before the hull is dry enough to do the epoxy work.

I am home with the armadillo's

Dennis

Lake Mineral Wells State Park review

We had planned to take an overnight camping trip as soon as it was cool enough and this weekend we went to Mineral Wells Sate Park for our first visit to this Park. After a quick 15 miles on the road bikes early Saturday we headed out and in about an hour and a half we were there.
While the park was very full it wasn't bad at all, we had a nice campsite and for the rest of Saturday we explored the Park roads and some of the trails on our mountain bikes. The roads were good with some nice tough hills and a good number of other cyclist, as a treat Michele and I each saw several deer and rolled up close to some of them before they could hear us. I found the bike trails hard, since horses and bikes share some trails a lot of the surface is loose sand from the horse traffic and its hard to go very fast and you get a good workout quick, add lots of big and small rocks and hills and you have a tough ride.

Now the hiking was good, Sunday we hiked 5 miles on the hike only trail to the primitive camping area and it was really pretty and we only saw one other group on the entire walk. As you can see in the pictures it is hilly and rocky so you walk, climb and crawl. Our dog Sprocket was pooped and in the 2nd photo as we return his tongue is hanging out pretty far.

I think we will return to this Park soon, it's close but seems like a long way from the house, I started getting the dinghy for the O'day 272 ready for the next trip so I can maybe fish the lake. I better rest up now to be ready for the Tuesday bike ride with the club www.gdbclub.com

Proud People Don't Litter ( stolen from Gummy)

Dennis

This week I didn't spend much time at the boat yard working on the O'day but I did sand the rudder down and fair it some. The pic's show the rudder after power washing and then after sanding and fairing (smoothing) it, it will get a new epoxy coating and bottom paint before launch.

Rudder for the O'day 272

I stayed off of the bicycle for the full week and rode 50 miles on Sunday and experienced no knee pain and had a great ride. I hope the rest was all I needed, it didn't hurt bad but after 40 miles or so it would hurt so I was pro active.

Michele had a good ride on Saturday when her and her friend Lugay went riding and had some excitement. Michele had a flat tire and had stopped to try and repair it, another cyclist stopped and helped her by changing the tube. Michele always carries a tube and supplies to make a roadside repair so the good Samaritan used them and all looked well. Shortly after taking off it went flat again and now She has no spare tube, another couple on a ride stopped and he repaired it with his spare tube and would take no money for his parts. I examined the tubes later and determined the first flat was a puncture and the first change went flat due to pinching the tube, the help was still greatly appreciated.

It has been my experience that fellow cyclist are some of the most generous and helpful people you will meet and even more so when dealing with fellow cyclists.

Dennis

Invitation to Sail

This week we went on several bicycle rides and I installed the new front chain rings on the Treck, I also put on some new tires with a red stripe. Saturday was the big ride of the week, it was only a little over 50 miles but we went on nice rural roads and climbed a lot of hills. This was a nice ride in part because I got to ride with some friends I seldom get to ride with like Gerald who let me stay in His motor home a the Hotter Than Hell Hundred. My right knee has been causing me pain toward the end of the longer rides so I think I will lay off the bike for about a week if I can, hopefully this will help the knee and at least keep it from getting worse.



We got a call from Mike and an invitation to go sailing on their Hunter 260 that is berthed on Lake Grapevine Sunday afternoon. Years ago we had kept our boat on this lake and it has really changed. The new Gaylord Texan Resort is open and looms large over the marina, in the photos you can see it in the background. We sailed by one of the areas with a patio on the water and we watched the people watch us sail by. It was a nice evening with a perfect 10mph breeze and low 80's temperature wise.

Michele looks like she is really suffering, but some body's got to do it. Man, I've got to get the O'day ready to go for a couple of long cruises.

The Fed spoke today and the market went crazy, as if a 1/2 point will stop all the foreclosures and inflation will go away if you exclude energy from the formula, please!. Don't get me wrong I liked the lift but I think when life looks like easy street there is danger at the door, and I don't want to go to work tomorrow.

I'm having to much fun, I don't want to grow up

Dennis

Boat Yard and Green Acres

With the O'day in the boat yard I have started to repair the bottom side, this is really a storage yard close to the house and nowhere near water, but while I am there refitting the boat it is a boat yard. After I started grinding the old paint off as I expected there are some blisters in the gel coat and this is not a good thing. The blisters seem to be very small and shallow and at this point have done no real damage to the fiberglass. For now I have to grind a significant amount of the gel coat off and let the hull dry out for months. It's going to take a while to get it all sanded and ground down and after that is done I will work on other project while it dries The O'Day 272 drying its blisters




Saturday Me and Michele rode our bikes to Richardson Bike Mart and bought some parts and a new set of front chain rings for the Treck, The old ones were very worn as they had about 10,000 miles on them. We had a great ride with a coffee shop stop and got in 45 miles. We left early and were back by 11:30 and decided to go to the farm for the rest of the weekend.

We had a nice evening and Sunday morning at the farm, after coffee Sunday morning I went scouting and found this buck rub that is really fresh as the broken limbs still have green leaves on them.

We trimmed the grass around the house and did other little projects and overall it was relaxing but I did a lot of walking in thick vegetation. Michele pitched in and helped do some of the hard work like hauling feed

On the way home my old truck started vibrating so I pulled over and found a good tire had developed a large hump in it. Since I was going to have to change a flat of course it started raining so hard you could barely see so I drove on the shoulder for about 5 miles and changed the tire under a bridge. The good thing is I paid very little for a new tire as It was considered a manufacturing defect.

Don't put it off

Dennis

Moving Day

Friday was the day to move the Sailboat, the travel lift was finally operational although he still had water over the long piers he drives out on to pick up the boat. Early in the morning I hooked up the home made trailer and headed out to the lake and dropped the rig off at the marina and Michele then took me to the boat and I moved it to the Marina.Once he had driven the lift out over the boat we lowered the slings under the boat, lifted the boat out of the water and then he drove it to the shop and power washed off an embarrassing amount of marine growth. I moved the trailer into position and he held the boat over the trailer while we adjusted the bunks to fit the boat.

It took a little longer than I had hoped for to get the trailer to fit but it finally worked out good and we got the boat home with no trouble.
The neighbors were nice about the beast parked in front of the house, we parked it there over the holiday weekend to clean it up a little and get it ready to go to the boat yard where I will start the re-fit of the O'day 272 Rising Star. Now that it's in the boat yard 1/2 mile from the house I am relieved that the trailer I built worked out well and I have all winter to work on it. I should still be able to get in some sailing on other yachts while we are dry docked.

I also had 2 nice bicycle rides with my club www.gdbclub.com on Tuesday and Saturday and plan on riding tonight weather permitting. The cooler weather has been nice to ride in and I have 2 weeks of much easier riding planned after several months of hard rides and then the Hotter Than Hell Hundred followed by 2 hard fast club rides.

Dennis

HHH with the motorhome

Finding a place to stay in Wichita Falls can be tough for the Hotter Than Hell Hundred but this year we were very lucky and had a great place to stay. Gerald, a good friend of ours has been cycling lately and decided to do the ride and take their 32 ft motor home. We scouted around the RV area and found a spot with 30 amp electric and got set up , best of all it was free for cyclist and a newspaper was delivered Saturday morning. This worked out great and was within walking distance of all the events, thanks Gerald and Kay.With nervous energy it was hard to go to sleep so we detailed our bikes, had more snacks

and visited with friends and neighbors. We finally went to bed and set the alarms for 5 am.Michele and I both had good rides and set pb's (personal bests) on a nice day with nice light breeze for the most part. Like last year Michele the the 64 mile or metric century and I rode the 100 miles. Of course our small group on the 100 mile route pulled into the outlaw 98 mile beer stop for a few minutes before finishing.

Get off the couch

Dennis

boating and swimming

On Saturday Michele and had nice rides on the bikes, she rode a little over 40 miles and I rode an extra 18 miles by taking a loop around the perimeter of DFW Airport. This lap is always fast and we almost never have to stop and we try to keep a pace over 20 miles an hour with one all out sprint zone. I got very lucky and won the sprint in my small group while achieving 39.4 mph as my max speed.

Sunday we went to check the flood water level at the lake and found it disappointingly high, we nose in to this Island and explored a little. The O'day 272 is a fixed keel boat but has a shoal draft wing keel, don't try to nose up to the shore like this in your fin keel boat.
This picture shows me fishing at the still closed boat ramp, you can see the parking lot is just now starting to dry out and the picnic tables are still under water. Maybe next week the ramp will open.

My Mother in Law was out of town for a week or so and Michele and I went over to check on things and just happened to have our swim suits with us. It was a nice day for a swim with perfect 84 degree water, (thanks Teddy)

Sprocket went for a swim too and while he can swim you can see he really wanted to get out of the water.

You never know if you have 6 more minutes, 6 more days, or 6 more years so do it Today.

Wish Michele and I both Luck as we ride in the Hotter Than Hell 100 this coming weekend.

Dennis

Urban Ride

On Saturday Michele and I went on a nice 50 + mile ride around Dallas, we left from the house and first rode to Snider Plaza and stopped for this picture at the fountain and then stopped at Starbucks to get caffeined up. After the coffee stop we rode through the S M U campus and through numerous back streets and neighborhood to arrive at White Rock Lake Park. This Park is the cycling Mecca of Dallas so we did a few laps around the lake at 9 miles each and then 7 miles up the White Rock Creek Trail and then back home. This was a fun ride and it was nice to ride moderately and sight see, so many of my rides have become too much like a race and very intense with a lot of "attacks" on any hill.

The weather has been very hot and it was over 100 when we got home from this ride. Living here we have learned to live with the heat and to not let it keep us indoors all summer like so many do. I have found that we can pace ourselves and drink plenty of water and do just fine, this was good training for the Hotter Than Hell 100 less than 2 weeks away.

On the sailing front all is quiet, the mast is still down and the water level is down to 5 ft above normal and next week I plan on hauling the boat. I think I will make it a winter project to completely refurbish the bottom, add pressure water to the existing 30 gallon tank and a good solar panel for keeping the battery's charged while traveling and staying on the hook for several days at a time.

Live more work less

Dennis Starkey