Day 6: Three States
...and I woke up at a little after 4am. After some French bread I quickly pack the bike (it is still there) and check the temperature: 45F, and dress accordingly. I get gas and I'm on the interstate by 5:45. Other than the cold and boring scenery, I'm glad to be away from the hellhole called Holbrook. I am listening to Anne Frank again, as the scenery goes wooshing by at a wind-induced, neck-cramping 10 degree angle.
There's not much to the scenery today. I stop at the Iron Skillet for breakfast around 10am (more pancakes...but the most expensive yet, at $4.95 for a short-stack. No matter, they were good (although the coffee was horrible - can't expect Starbucks everywhere).
Eventually I get to New Mexico and the landscape gets a bit more interesting, with mesa's (plateau's) and such. The roads are much better too, and there seems to be more focus on tourism. I've heard that Arizona is one of the lowest-taxed states in the nation, and it shows, especially in contrast to New Mexico. Motoring through Albuquerque (again the GPS is worth it's weight in gold) I am reminded of Jennifer's coworker at Mayo, Joe, who longed for Albuquerque so much that he moved back. It looks like a nice city - nestled at the base of some tall mountains, everything has a tan hue. Even the concrete highway dividers are painted a subdued southwestern pink.
Riding south it's warming up. But I'm bored by the landscape. It seems harsh, and I long for the forested mountains of Oregon. It doesn't help that I'm stilled frustrated from yesterday. Here I am, racing along the interstates at 90mph, from gas stop to gas stop, wondering if I should do this by car from now on. There doesn't seem to be a point to traveling like this by bike. I spend 3 hours a day packing, unpacking, loading, unloading, dressing, undressing. Getting off then on the bike is a chore. Riding down the interstates makes my back and shoulders tired. I'm limited in what I can bring. And to top it off, all the camping gear perched on the back seat reduces how sporty I can get in the corners. Not that there have been any sporty curvy roads since leaving California anyway. This trip is going to cost $1000 by the time I get done with putting new tires on, oil change, hotel/camping/food/gas, I might as well have flown and spent my vacation elsewhere. I'm just not having much fun; had I at least driven I wouldn't have all of these frustrations. I figure I can sell the VFR about $4000 and put that towards paying down the Audi. It doesn't have as much power as it used to, even considering the higher elevations. It has a noticeable hesitation. When it was new it would lift the front wheel with just throttle, now it bogs down. My cornering skills have progressed to where the limiting factor is sight-distance: if I go any faster I will be coming around corners too fast to handle any obstacles like sand/dirt or oncomming traffic. The bottom line is that the high costs and inconveniences of motorcycling don't overcome the fun-factor anymore. At least I think this will be my last camping trip by motorcycle, if only because the camping gear adds so much weight high above the center of gravity that I can't enjoy the twisty roads anyway. Besides, if I drive the Audi, I'm sure my riding buddies will appreciate me carrying their camping gear.
Somewhere around a town called 'Truth or Consequences' (look it up, it's on the map) I get gas after running on fumes for 30 miles. Why the hell am I riding a machine with a 200-mile range in the desert anyway? Stupid. Ann Frank's Diary comes to end and I find out she gets gassed. Tragic story, but I'm miserable too and misery loves company. Besides, I got tired of her pre-mature adolescent self-involved inner dialogues (what was interesting were the descriptions of life in the annex). Next up: Click and Clack's Auto-Talk. Welcome to another limitation of motorcycling: Wind noise. Unless you're on a faired bike like a Gold Wing, wind-noise easily exceeds 100db. I suspect it's less without a helmet, as the helmet presents a larger surface area for the wind and seems to trap noise within it. So we wear earplugs (another inconvenience). In order to listen to music, some people add speakers to their helmet, and wear earplug, and crank the volume to overcome the wind noise. This doesn't make sense to me. So I have some earplugs with speakers in them: I can block about 15db ambient noise while piping music right into my ears. It works pretty good, except the earplug part breaks down overtime (like, one or two days of use) and becomes less effective. Plus, every time they're inserted they become less effective too. Well, today they're less effective and despite turning the volume to the max I cannot overcome the wind enough to understand what Click and Clack are saying. I need to take off some layers anyway, as it's getting close to 85F and I'm dressed for 45F (another motorcycling inconvenience). So first I take off my gloves, I have to unplug the MP3 player, then my heated vest, untangle the cords, and dismount. Helmet comes off. Then I have to unzip my mesh jacket from my pants, remove the jacket, take out the windproof liner, fleece layer, and heated vest. Take off my leather pants and remove the thinsulate liner (yes I'm standing in my underwear). Then put on the pants and jacket, zip them together, take everything else and squish it down as small as it will go, put it in my topcase, get out the mesh gloves. I can't put my earphones back in yet because they haven't yet expanded to a useful size that will block wind noise, so I put in regular earplugs. They don't go in right, so I have to put in the left one twice more and the right one once again. Now you know why so many motorcyclists don't bother with protective gear. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that since my jacket and pants only zip together at the waist the jacket rides up so I have to cinch it at my stomach. It looks retarded. The jacket used to fit great but all these layers have stretched it and I've lost weight. Never have I found a jacket that isn't too tight on my shoulders or too lose across my stomach that didn't stretch when I added layers for warmth. The result of stretching is a jacket that fills with wind and balloons.
Going through Las Cruces I proceed to Texas and stop at the visitor's center just to stop and eat an MRE pineapple slice. While there I ask an attendent about getting to Carlsbad Cavern's, if US-180 is an ok road (i.e. not gravel or anything). They say it's not a problem, but take US 375 around El Paso, traffic will be bad ... So I do. What a nice change of pace, it goes through mountains (even if they are small). Thank goodness I don't have to live here. The temps are in the mid-nineties. On the other side of El Paso I ride through the Fort Bliss reservation and it's huge. There are tufts of green stuff surrounded by desert sand. I seem to recall that here and Fort Hood is where they train for Iraq deployment. Shortly thereafter I pass an immigration checkpoint and the border patrol ask where I'm from etc. Obviously I'm not a mexican so they let me through promptly. A sign says this post has caught nearly 5000 illegal immigrants already. So far all Texans have been quite friendly.
US-180 has almost no traffic so I wick it up again. The sightlines are great too. The scenery isn't very good, just more sagebrush desert. According to my map this goes through Chi-hooah-hooah Desert and past the Gaudelupe mountains and national park. Sweet! Before I know it I'm in White's City and get myself a tent site. Charlie White founded the city to capitalize on the cavern tourism; the caverns were re-discovered (native indians have been there before) the caverns but there's no relation between Jim and Charlie. The campground has a couple trees for tent shade but more importantly it has sheet metal structures providing afternoon and evening shade for picnic tables. In the campground there's a group of Western Georgia students, one of which comes over and we talk bikes. He live near the Dragon (300+ turns in 11 miles) and rides a ZX12R. On the other side of me is what appears to be a church group. At around 6:30 I'm setting up and they all get in their vans and drive away. Hm, do I smell that bad?
A quick ride to the grocery store and pay phone nets me a chat with Jennifer and overpriced (but cold) beer. I also learn that everyone left the campground to see the bats fly out. I guess I'll do that tomorrow. First dinner (soup and beer) then a shower and I'm asleep before the students can get back and make enough noise to keep me awake.
...and I woke up at a little after 
Riding south it's warming up. But I'm bored by the landscape. It seems harsh, and I long for the forested mountains of 
Somewhere around a town called 'Truth or Consequences' (look it up, it's on the map) I get gas after running on fumes for 30 miles. Why the hell am I riding a machine with a 200-mile range in the desert anyway? Stupid. Ann Frank's Diary comes to end and I find out she gets gassed. Tragic story, but I'm miserable too and misery loves company. Besides, I got tired of her pre-mature adolescent self-involved inner dialogues (what was interesting were the descriptions of life in the annex). Next up: Click and Clack's Auto-Talk. Welcome to another limitation of motorcycling: Wind noise. Unless you're on a faired bike like a Gold Wing, wind-noise easily exceeds 100db. I suspect it's less without a helmet, as the helmet presents a larger surface area for the wind and seems to trap noise within it. So we wear earplugs (another inconvenience). In order to listen to music, some people add speakers to their helmet, and wear earplug, and crank the volume to overcome the wind noise. This doesn't make sense to me. So I have some earplugs with speakers in them: I can block about 15db ambient noise while piping music right into my ears. It works pretty good, except the earplug part breaks down overtime (like, one or two days of use) and becomes less effective. Plus, every time they're inserted they become less effective too. Well, today they're less effective and despite turning the volume to the max I cannot overcome the wind enough to understand what Click and Clack are saying. I need to take off some layers anyway, as it's getting close to 85F and I'm dressed for 45F (another motorcycling inconvenience). So first I take off my gloves, I have to unplug the MP3 player, then my heated vest, untangle the cords, and dismount. Helmet comes off. Then I have to unzip my mesh jacket from my pants, remove the jacket, take out the windproof liner, fleece layer, and heated vest. Take off my leather pants and remove the thinsulate liner (yes I'm standing in my underwear). Then put on the pants and jacket, zip them together, take everything else and squish it down as small as it will go, put it in my topcase, get out the mesh gloves. I can't put my earphones back in yet because they haven't yet expanded to a useful size that will block wind noise, so I put in regular earplugs. They don't go in right, so I have to put in the left one twice more and the right one once again. Now you know why so many motorcyclists don't bother with protective gear. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that since my jacket and pants only zip together at the waist the jacket rides up so I have to cinch it at my stomach. It looks retarded. The jacket used to fit great but all these layers have stretched it and I've lost weight. Never have I found a jacket that isn't too tight on my shoulders or too lose across my stomach that didn't stretch when I added layers for warmth. The result of stretching is a jacket that fills with wind and balloons.
Going through 
US-180 has almost no traffic so I wick it up again. The sightlines are great too. The scenery isn't very good, just more sagebrush desert. According to my map this goes through 
A quick ride to the grocery store and pay phone nets me a chat with Jennifer and overpriced (but cold) beer. I also learn that everyone left the campground to see the bats fly out. I guess I'll do that tomorrow. First dinner (soup and beer) then a shower and I'm asleep before the students can get back and make enough noise to keep me awake.
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