The_Veg
D'OH!
Last night I was getting bored. But it was really nice and kind of cool outside, and I had a ready and eager motorcycle waiting...
Living in a big urban megalopolis located in the flat plains of Texsux can be frustrating- you need to set time aside to be able to get to interesting roads. What to do, what to do...
The solution: I compromised and rode the mostly straight urban streets of Dallas at night.
I live very close to the neighbourhood known as Lower Greenville, which is one of the big night life areas in town. So that was my first destination. Lower Greenville is a popular cruising spot, with many Harleys and clones and crotch-rockets parked all over the sidewalks outside the trendy dance clubs. Not the sort of place I usually like to ride, but I passed through just to get a peek at the neon and all the people. Not too many bikes out either. It was cool enough that in my long-sleeve tee and Tourmaster Tech II I was slightly chilly. I guess cool people don't ride when it's below tee-shirt-and-leather-vest temperature.
At the southern end of Lower Greenville I turned right onto Ross which isn't very spectacular as streets go but it points right at the downtown Dallas skyline at close range and has a few small flourishes of neon itself.
Closer in to downtown and I have to decide where to go next. Since I'm already trolling the nightlife areas, why not make a pass through Deep Ellum? This neighbourhood on the east end of downtown goes back many years, way back to the blues clubs of the 1930s. It gets its name from Elm Street which runs through it. Main and Commerce Streets run parallel to Elm so I got to spend a little time there. Being Friday night the place was quite alive with the young and hip, all kinds of neon, tattoo parlours, a few bikes (more than LG had at least), and lots of parking attendents with orange flags trying to get me to trade $6 for the privelege of stopping. No thanks. Gotta ride on.
From Deep Ellum I headed west into downtown. Downtown Dallas is notorious for being really dead after dark (all the nightlife is elsewhere, downtown is all business). Guess what? I was delighted to see that nightlife is creeping into downtown. I also noticed that they've already got some of the Christmas lights up. I continued west until I reached the end of downtown at Houston street. I looped around a couple of blocks back to Elm so I'd be going the right way. When you cross Houston going west, you enter Dealey Plaza. Elm Street is the one that goes by the book depository and the Grassy Knoll, and was inhabited at one point 40 years ago today by a certain presidential motorcade...
Knowing the 40th annivarsary of the assassination was the very next day made it a slightly more chiling ride. I was in the center lane, just as the big open Lincoln was. I saw that they'd repainted the X on the pavement where the "third vote for Johnson" arrived. I couldn't help but imagine the sound of a shot ringing out as I passed over the spot. I've been through Dealey many times but this was the first time I'd done it on a motorcycle. I can only imagine how those Harley-mounted cops must have felt when all hell broke loose.
I gave the throttle a good twist and moved into the right lane, the R100R's exhaust note booming echoey through the underpass. I was then going north on I-35. I missed the exit I wanted to take, so I decided on the next exit, Oak Lawn. A couple of nice curves, then up to the first light on Oak Lawn. I swear this was serendipity, but I then noticed where I was...right next to the old abandoned Parkland Hospital, which meant that until this point I was still on the doomed motorcade's route. This old wreck of a building was where the motorcade rushed to from Dealey Plaza.
On that note I said goodbye to History and stayed with Oak Lawn until it became Preston and passed through the Park Cities, then turned on University and headed home.
Today I rode with some guys from my club and a few others to the big motorcycle show downtown. Since the convention center is only a few blocks from Dealey plaza I thought about stopping by pay repsects but crowds and traffic led me to do otherwise. Maybe tomorrow...
Living in a big urban megalopolis located in the flat plains of Texsux can be frustrating- you need to set time aside to be able to get to interesting roads. What to do, what to do...
The solution: I compromised and rode the mostly straight urban streets of Dallas at night.
I live very close to the neighbourhood known as Lower Greenville, which is one of the big night life areas in town. So that was my first destination. Lower Greenville is a popular cruising spot, with many Harleys and clones and crotch-rockets parked all over the sidewalks outside the trendy dance clubs. Not the sort of place I usually like to ride, but I passed through just to get a peek at the neon and all the people. Not too many bikes out either. It was cool enough that in my long-sleeve tee and Tourmaster Tech II I was slightly chilly. I guess cool people don't ride when it's below tee-shirt-and-leather-vest temperature.
At the southern end of Lower Greenville I turned right onto Ross which isn't very spectacular as streets go but it points right at the downtown Dallas skyline at close range and has a few small flourishes of neon itself.
Closer in to downtown and I have to decide where to go next. Since I'm already trolling the nightlife areas, why not make a pass through Deep Ellum? This neighbourhood on the east end of downtown goes back many years, way back to the blues clubs of the 1930s. It gets its name from Elm Street which runs through it. Main and Commerce Streets run parallel to Elm so I got to spend a little time there. Being Friday night the place was quite alive with the young and hip, all kinds of neon, tattoo parlours, a few bikes (more than LG had at least), and lots of parking attendents with orange flags trying to get me to trade $6 for the privelege of stopping. No thanks. Gotta ride on.
From Deep Ellum I headed west into downtown. Downtown Dallas is notorious for being really dead after dark (all the nightlife is elsewhere, downtown is all business). Guess what? I was delighted to see that nightlife is creeping into downtown. I also noticed that they've already got some of the Christmas lights up. I continued west until I reached the end of downtown at Houston street. I looped around a couple of blocks back to Elm so I'd be going the right way. When you cross Houston going west, you enter Dealey Plaza. Elm Street is the one that goes by the book depository and the Grassy Knoll, and was inhabited at one point 40 years ago today by a certain presidential motorcade...
Knowing the 40th annivarsary of the assassination was the very next day made it a slightly more chiling ride. I was in the center lane, just as the big open Lincoln was. I saw that they'd repainted the X on the pavement where the "third vote for Johnson" arrived. I couldn't help but imagine the sound of a shot ringing out as I passed over the spot. I've been through Dealey many times but this was the first time I'd done it on a motorcycle. I can only imagine how those Harley-mounted cops must have felt when all hell broke loose.
I gave the throttle a good twist and moved into the right lane, the R100R's exhaust note booming echoey through the underpass. I was then going north on I-35. I missed the exit I wanted to take, so I decided on the next exit, Oak Lawn. A couple of nice curves, then up to the first light on Oak Lawn. I swear this was serendipity, but I then noticed where I was...right next to the old abandoned Parkland Hospital, which meant that until this point I was still on the doomed motorcade's route. This old wreck of a building was where the motorcade rushed to from Dealey Plaza.
On that note I said goodbye to History and stayed with Oak Lawn until it became Preston and passed through the Park Cities, then turned on University and headed home.
Today I rode with some guys from my club and a few others to the big motorcycle show downtown. Since the convention center is only a few blocks from Dealey plaza I thought about stopping by pay repsects but crowds and traffic led me to do otherwise. Maybe tomorrow...
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