This is a journal of the California trip with Steve, 4-27-01 to 5-13-01
4-17-01 Left the house at 4:30 a.m. Nita woke up and bade me goodbye in the driveway. I rode to Patterson and picked Steve up. We rode to the firehouse and had biscuits and coffee with some of Steve’s firemen buds. Beat feet on I-10 west and made a stop at Warm Springs. Saw Carol there, one of the Nurses who took care of Jen. We spoke a bit and then I gave a donation in Jen’s name to the hospital. It was good to visit there again. There was a gentleman(Speck) I met who’d re-habbed there as a child with polio. He gave me a signed copy of a book he’d written of his experiences as a child with polio. We rode on to Kerrville, Texas. 560 miles. Stayed at the Best Western.
4-28-01 Had the free breakfast, and hit the road at 9:30. We rode I10 to Fort Stocton, then left the interstate for hwy.285. The wind here was strong and constant. There were long mesas covered with giant windmills to harness the wind’s power for electricity. These were called wind farms. Gas mileage dropped down to 35mpg. This was a common occurrence, as we bucked a lot of wind, especially when headed west. We met a dude on a Road King who was a fireman from Penn. And who was traveling solo around the country(literally!). He’d gone south to New Orleans, rode the french quarter, but didn’t get off his bike. Cool. Now he was headed west. To El Paso then Cal. He rode with us to the 285 turn-off. Saw lots of deer. We arrived at Carlsbad Caverns that evening, early enough to explore some of the things, like the uses of the dessert plants by the indians, and an indian shelter under large rock outcroppings. But it was too late to go down into the caves, so we spent the night at the neat Best Western at the entrance of the park. The ride to the top of the mountain was much fun. Short and sweet. There would be many long and tiring, but exhilarating, mountain rides to come.
4-29-01 Did the caves tour. First took a guided tour(The King’s Palace) with 2 rangers. Afterwards, we strolled around the Big Room on our own. Took lots of pics, It was awesome. I remember Mammoth Cave and Ruby Falls from a while back, but Carlsbad is much more vast. Stacie, one of the Rangers, seemed tickled to have a few coonasses in her group. But we didn’t buy all of her “seepage” stories. Talk about DARK with the lights out! When we got back up to the parking lot, it had rained, and the bikes were soaked. This was an omen of things to come, because we hit violent weather that day, just outside of Roswell, N.M. Luckily found a roadside shelter to duck under. It was blowing hard, with hard rain and hail, for about 2 hours. We froze our buns off! While we were huddled under the roadside table, a N.M. state trooper drove up. We thought he might be miffed that we’d rolled the bikes under the cover meant for the picnic table, but he was only making a social call. He wanted to see the bikes. He told us he’d ordered a Soft tail and was getting it in a week or so. He must have wanted to socialize pretty bad, ‘cause he braved cold wind and rain and hail in a short-sleeved shirt. Was all he could do to keep his hat on his head. Then, after the weather cleared, we headed out, hoping we’d find a gas station. We did, and spent some time in the store there to thaw and dry out a bit. A wrong turn took us 80 miles out of the way. But they were pretty miles, and we got to see Ruidoso(noisy river), a pretty town—where they have quarter horse championship races. It made for dessert riding after dark, though, and we didn’t get to Socorro, N.M. till after 10p.m. We were whipped out that night, that’s for sure. We covered a lot of miles, but not in the right direction. It was, none the less, an adventuresome day to remember. Riding the dessert at night was a new experience. The sky was huge, and full of stars. It was quite windy, though, and a bit scary, knowing there were critters in the road a lot in the dessert at night. It’s also a lot more fun riding when you can see the scenery. It sure was nice to get into the motel room that night...we deserved a good rest! |
