While you can legally drive 80
mph on Texas State Highway 130, also known as the Pickle Parkway, motorcycle
and sports car enthusiasts flock to three
Hill Country Ranch Roads. SH 335, 336
and 337, are known throughout Texas as the Twisted Sisters.
A stretch
of one of these seemingly pleasant curvy roads starts off pretty straight, but
then bucks, snorts, twists and turns in an effort to throw us like a bull in a
Bandera rodeo. This is whitetail deer country, and they will pop up at the most
inopportune times, like in the middle of a downhill, off camber, decreasing
radius turn! Then there’s the occasional cage…they can be as unpredictable as a
deer and seem to show up at inopportune times, as well.
I
hail from South Carolina and from the time I got my first sports car drove the
mountainous curves of North Carolina, Tennessee and northern Georgia. These curves wind so tight you can almost hear
them whine. Recently, I returned from a
visit to my son in Yorkshire. Let me
tell you there are curves in ‘them thar hills’ where you can say hello to your own
arse coming around a sharp bend!
The second weekend in June, along with a friend and fellow author Toni Sweeney, I drove the Twisted Sisters with my car club.
My license plate surround says it all:
‘Houston Miata Club – Our members love to go topless’. Toni navigated on this epic adventure. I trusted her to know left from right—which I
do not! Luckily, the HMC go as a 'convoy' around the twistys and turnys. We drive to have fun not to set any records--a good thing for one who doesn't know N, S, E & W as more than letters of the alphabet
So here’s to Black Magic, his Momma and Toni
Sweeney—On the Road Again…
You might enjoy this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOjO3HSqD1Q
