Day two was to begin at a more reasonable time...9:00am departure. However, as with most thing, our ETD was subject to change. Our plan was to meet for breakfast in the hotel lobby around 7:30-8:00 so I sent my alarm for 6:45am. At 6:30, I received a text message saying that some of the group was in the lobby, ready to eat. My first panicked thought was that I had overslept or maybe I had failed to adjust my alarm for the new time zone.
I hustled to the shower, threw my stuff in the bag and headed out the door only to meet the guy next door. He said that a couple of our friends were early risers and were chomping at the bit to hit the road. I figured since I was dressed and packed that I might as well adjust my thinking to the new departure time. I load up the bike and headed for breakfast.
While we ate, I heard the latest on the weather in the Albuquerque area...very high winds in and around the area. At that point we could only adjust our departure so much, so we left 30 min early...not early enough as it turned out.
We decided that the route suggested by the retired NM Highway Patrol Officer was the way to go...avoiding a lot of trucks on I-40 was a good idea. The road out of Clovis was two-lane and not at all smooth...typical of New Mexico State roads I'm told. After about 45 minutes heading due west we came to our first decision point...turn north and hit I-40 about 100 miles out or continue on the road we were on. Several cars and motorcycles behind us turned...we opted to continue west.
The road was still a narrow two-lane and two large oversized trucks, with escort vehicles were in front of us...no passing for us. The speed limit on this part of the road was 55...slow going for sure. Luckily, the trucks turned off not too far up the road...headed down a dirt road that appeared to go nowhere.
Now I thought our problems we'd behind us and we'd have smooth sailing (riding) on into Albuquerque...boy, was I wrong. The wind had been hitting us from the south but shortly after the trucks turned off, the winds started to get stronger.
The scenery along the route was pretty bad...rundown houses, crumbling barns and other structures and an occasional lone cow or two. After riding through 3-4 1 house "villages", we came to Fort Sumner, the resting place of Billy the Kid. Had the weather been better, we might have visited hie grave site or the museum. As it was, we just wanted to get to our destination and get out of the 30-40 mph crosswinds.
We had been on the road for about 1 1/2 hours and coming up on our planned refueling stop pretty soon. Almost immediately after leaving the city limits of Fort Sumner, the winds increased yet again...now they were 40G45. We were really having to fight the wind to keep from getting blown off the road...and there was no shoulder.
We arrived in Vaughn, NM and pulled onto the first gas station we came to. It was such a relief to be stopped. We got our gas and something to drink and it was back on the road, still headed almost due west and the gale force winds accosting us from the south.
Another 50 miles or so, we came to our second decision point...turn north towards I-40 or keep going west, up into the mountains and hitting I-25 going north...the recommended route. Our leader, who by the way had gotten us this far without the benefit of a GPS, turned right by accident. Rather than u-turn, we decided to continue north. The good news was that the high winds were at our backs...no more howling in your ears or sand hitting you in the face.
Our respite was short lived...30 or so miles north we came to I-40...only 30 miles from Albuquerque...piece of cake, right? Well, wrong again. We quickly discovered that the next 30 miles were going to be hazardous to say the least. If we thought the crosswinds we had on the little two lane road to the south were bad, now the winds increased to 50 or more. We slowed down to 55-60 to help with handling but this didn't help much. Cars no trucks passed us in the left lane, the wind not affecting them quite as much. When a big rig would pass, the wind would stop but when the truck was past, we sort of got sucked into its wake momentarily then we would get hit with the crosswinds again. This happened over and over the entire 30 miles until we got into the city limits then the winds subsided somewhat, probably due to higher slightly higher terrain to the south. Finally, we found the hotel and checked in very glad to be out of the wind.
No comments:
Post a Comment