THE ROAD GOES ON FOREVER …
According to the numbers, Texas is second only to California in population. Yet rolling through the fabled Texas Hill Country, that statistic seems improbable. The road in front of me is empty and serene, a winding ribbon of blacktop running through vast expanses of scrub land punctuated by huge ranches. If there are people here, they’re not showing themselves.
The numbers start to make sense, however, when you consider that Texas is almost 40 percent larger than California, second only to Alaska in terms of total area. And with the lion’s share of the population in the state’s eastern half, the western half, with the Hill Country running roughly across its midsection, has miles of empty roads. They’re perfect for the vintage Norton and Vincent that Mark Scott and I are piloting from his home in Austin to the 2016 North Texas Norton Owners Association and Lone Star Vincent Owners Club joint rally in Leakey, in the heart of the Hill Country.
This whole trip is something of a pinch me, an “is-this-really-happening?” experience set into motion when I made a date with famed Vincent collector and restorer Herb Harris in Austin to photograph his latest project, the Woodward Avenue Vincent (see , September/October 2016). Good pal Mark had long tempted me with a Hill Country ride, and the window of
