Way out here in Texas is a private riding area on the Red River, which forms the boundary with Oklahoma. This place is known as Muenster. It has just about the finest 2,500 acres or so of riding anywhere in the country, with tight woods, sandy creek bottoms, rocky hills--a little bit of everything. Some trails are easy, perfect for beginners, some are more difficult, and some are just plain brutal. But the nastiest, most infamous section of Muenster is known as Bill's Woods. It slumbers restlessly behind a locked iron gate, but occasionally some foolhardy soul sneaks in past the gate, unable to resist its siren song. Most of them meet with misfortune. Bill's Woods has a reputation as one of the gnarliest sections anywhere, with steep, rocky hills, deep gullies, super-tight trees. A trip through Bill's Woods is a gut-wrenching, exhausting ordeal, a body crushing, bike breaking struggle from start to finish, with nowhere to rest. Only a fool goes into Bill's Woods, they say.
The old-timers say that Bill's Woods were named for an unfortunate Honda rider named Bill Something-or-other, a slightly overweight, pasty-faced accountant from somewhere up North, who rode into those woods one chilly afternoon, but never rode out. They say that on that cold, gray afternoon, as the day was nearly spent, Bill, ignoring his buddies' advice, fired up his XL 650, and headed straight into those dark woods for one last ride, turn signals and all.
When night fell, and Bill still hadn't returned to the truck, his buddies quickly ate his lunch and drank his share of the beer, and went out to look for him. They searched and they searched, all night long, with only infrequent breaks to buy several more cases of beer, but they never found him. Twice, they thought they heard the sound of a large, unwieldy four-stroke being kicked and kicked but never starting, along with low moans and curses. And once, they thought they saw a dim headlight back in the trees, faintly glimmering in the dark, then passing. But try though they might, they could never get any closer to Bill, or whoever it was. :eek:
They thought that his XL 650 might have fallen into one of the many deep gorges or crevasses and plunged all the way to the Earth's core, exploding like a heavy, piglike, ill-handling meteor in the fiery furnace at the planet's center. Or, they thought, he may have started a rockslide trying to climb one of the many boulder-studded hills, a rockslide that buried him and his huge, massively heavy tank of a bike without a trace.
At any rate, Bill was gone, so they loaded their bikes and sadly drove home--sadly, because they were out of beer. They may even have missed Bill a little, too. :ugg:
Bill never did turn up at home, and nobody ever heard from him again. There are those who say he left that porky Honda lying in a ditch and walked out of the woods, and that he just kept on walking to California, where he gave up motorcycles and took up rock climbing, or some other fruity sport like that. :think
There are others who say that Bill never really did go into those woods at all, that he took one look at the horrible, nasty trails up those hills and through those rocks; that he took one look at them and headed down the highway instead, seeking a new life as a motorcycle nomad, like Bronson, who came then, as you know.
But there are still others who say that he did indeed go into those woods, and that he never came out; who say that sometimes, if you find yourself in Bill's Woods just as the sun goes down, when the light is just dying, and the wind sighs through the trees like a lost soul, sometimes you can still see that dim headlight wandering through those dark trees, and hear the sound of a fat man on an underpowered, freakishly heavy garbage scow of a four-stroke struggling eternally to get out of those woods.
Now, you may think I'm just telling stories, or you may think that I'm a manic-depressive, borderline schizophrenic with paranoid delusions and several personality disorders, like that quack of a shrink said (oh, he'll pay; don't think he won't pay); but I've been to those woods, and I've seen that strange light. I've heard those low moans and curses, back in the woods, so faint that you doubt yourself as soon as they're gone. But I heard what I heard, and I seen what I seen. And my advice to you, is stay away from Bill's Woods. :scream: :p
The old-timers say that Bill's Woods were named for an unfortunate Honda rider named Bill Something-or-other, a slightly overweight, pasty-faced accountant from somewhere up North, who rode into those woods one chilly afternoon, but never rode out. They say that on that cold, gray afternoon, as the day was nearly spent, Bill, ignoring his buddies' advice, fired up his XL 650, and headed straight into those dark woods for one last ride, turn signals and all.
When night fell, and Bill still hadn't returned to the truck, his buddies quickly ate his lunch and drank his share of the beer, and went out to look for him. They searched and they searched, all night long, with only infrequent breaks to buy several more cases of beer, but they never found him. Twice, they thought they heard the sound of a large, unwieldy four-stroke being kicked and kicked but never starting, along with low moans and curses. And once, they thought they saw a dim headlight back in the trees, faintly glimmering in the dark, then passing. But try though they might, they could never get any closer to Bill, or whoever it was. :eek:
They thought that his XL 650 might have fallen into one of the many deep gorges or crevasses and plunged all the way to the Earth's core, exploding like a heavy, piglike, ill-handling meteor in the fiery furnace at the planet's center. Or, they thought, he may have started a rockslide trying to climb one of the many boulder-studded hills, a rockslide that buried him and his huge, massively heavy tank of a bike without a trace.
At any rate, Bill was gone, so they loaded their bikes and sadly drove home--sadly, because they were out of beer. They may even have missed Bill a little, too. :ugg:
Bill never did turn up at home, and nobody ever heard from him again. There are those who say he left that porky Honda lying in a ditch and walked out of the woods, and that he just kept on walking to California, where he gave up motorcycles and took up rock climbing, or some other fruity sport like that. :think
There are others who say that Bill never really did go into those woods at all, that he took one look at the horrible, nasty trails up those hills and through those rocks; that he took one look at them and headed down the highway instead, seeking a new life as a motorcycle nomad, like Bronson, who came then, as you know.
But there are still others who say that he did indeed go into those woods, and that he never came out; who say that sometimes, if you find yourself in Bill's Woods just as the sun goes down, when the light is just dying, and the wind sighs through the trees like a lost soul, sometimes you can still see that dim headlight wandering through those dark trees, and hear the sound of a fat man on an underpowered, freakishly heavy garbage scow of a four-stroke struggling eternally to get out of those woods.
Now, you may think I'm just telling stories, or you may think that I'm a manic-depressive, borderline schizophrenic with paranoid delusions and several personality disorders, like that quack of a shrink said (oh, he'll pay; don't think he won't pay); but I've been to those woods, and I've seen that strange light. I've heard those low moans and curses, back in the woods, so faint that you doubt yourself as soon as they're gone. But I heard what I heard, and I seen what I seen. And my advice to you, is stay away from Bill's Woods. :scream: :p
