Day 1:  The start of 4 days of wind therapy with my one and only in east Texas.  The highlights that you can flesh out with your GPS or Google maps.  Maybe even an old paper map.  Day 1 was the ride out to the lodge.

Highway 49.  Find your way to it, and get on it as soon as possible on your way to the dinner stop at Pine Mills Catfish in Pine Mills, TX. (Hwy 14 at FM49)  Open from 4:30pm until the food or the guests run out.  You will get a fully fried meal, catfish, okra, fries, hush puppies with a nod to health – if you must – with a dinner salad and bean soup.  Get there early, tables were sparse by 5:30 when we left.

Lake of the Pines Lodge features an older single strip hotel with bike friendly parking in front of the rooms, as well as the cabin section across the road.  Cabins are either older shacks or , like ours, utility barns converted to cabins.  They work, have excellent A/C, have their own front porch, and nobody on the other side of the wall.  Ours was the Purple Cabin, and we loved it.

I’d like them on facebook if I ever remember to do so.  You know where you are when the clerk shouts ” Honey, you’re gonna lose the internet, I’m a runnin’ a credit card.”  Supplies are available at the c-store across the road from 7am to 7pm.  You get the added benefit of faint Sirrius radio over the PA system from open to close.  Its oldies, but it adds to the charm.

The Route out of Dallas:  PGBT to I30; to 205; 256 to 751, head south to 80.  A long run to Mineola to pick up 49, on to Gilmer, then 155 to the west side of the Lake. Take 729 to LOTP Lodge, about 230 miles.  My weapons officer planned a great route.