2000 Weekend at Rio Frio

Each year the Northwest Houston Chapter of the San Jacinto High Rollers gets together and rides out west towards Concan, for a weekend of riding and partying at Rio Frio. This year's run was the weekend of September 30th. The main pack pack hit the road around 9:00 AM Friday, though a few folks left earlier or later that day. Ritz's bike decided to ride most of the way in the back of Treetop's truck. Unfortunately we had the first SJHR pack accident in some 20 years a little bit west of San Antonio. Jason was hit broadside by a truck while the pack was attempting a u-turn. That incident landed him in a San Antonio hospital for three weeks, to be followed by many months of rehabilitation. Once Jason was settled in the hospital and relatives had arrived, the remainder of the pack joined the others already at Rio Frio. The accident put a damper on Friday evening, which was spent worrying about Jason, checking with the hospital, and calling friends.

Saturday morning, after a night of truly earth-shaking snoring from several directions, there was a breakfast of egg burritos. Initially there wasn't much enthusiasm for riding the Hill Country, but we all needed the distraction and therapy of a good ride. So we set out on some really great roads: FM 337 from Leakey to Camp Wood; SH 55 to Rockspring and lunch; US 377 and SH 41 to FM 355, which wound back towards Camp Wood. Turning off on FM 2631 lead us to a dirt road, so we turned around and headed back to FM 355 and Camp Wood. From there we took FM 337 back to Leakey and returned to the Rio Frio.

Meanwhile back at the Frio, several folks decided to just hang out there for the day, and see if they could coax Ritz's bike back out of the truck. By the time the pack returned they had a pretty good head start on the beer--and whatever else. The day wound down with good food, good friends, good beer, and a lot of concern about Jason.

Sunday morning we grabbed some French toast, and a few of us set off for more riding. This time we headed up FM 336 from Leakey to SH 41, via several hundred cattle guards. SH 41 and FM 1273 took us to Hunt, then a beautiful ride on SH 39 and FM 187 took us to Vanderpool. From there we hopped on FM 337 back to Leakey and the Frio. We got back close to noon, and everyone was getting packed up and ready to go home. The ride home took the scenic route through Utopia and Tarpley to Bandera, then on into San Antonio. We converged on the hospital to check up on Jason, then headed back for Houston.

The following pictures were taken by Lenny and Janet Wisnoski.