So we got up this morning at 4 am and tried to be as quiet as two people can be rolling their luggage down the hall to put it in our trailer. We wanted to get a head start on the heat because we knew it was going to be hot today. The manager poked his head out to see what was going on and figure out why someone was up at that hour of the day. By the time I got out to the lobby the manager had coffee made for us. A few minutes later he had the cereal, waffles, milk, juices, donuts, etc. out all prepared for us. We never expected breakfast because the hours for breakfast are between 7 – 9. He told us we need to eat a good breakfast and he tried to feed us everything. This guy was our Mexican-Jewish Grandmother –ha! He was half my age but acted like a mamma sending her children off to school. Then as we left he wished us God Speed. We were a half an hour late getting out but we had a good breakfast. You just don’t find people like that anymore. However, as we finally were getting out the door he put a bowl of apples and oranges in front of our faces and said TAKE ONE…… For some reason we both took an orange….I think it is a “Snow White thing” if you know what I mean.
I am finally getting in to the groove with this motorcycle trip. Every day when I get on the bike and get settled I try to put my seat belt on. Duh! Today I finally didn’t do that.
We drove a tough 737.1 miles today. The whole trip thus far is 2,446 miles. It started out raining in San Antonio at 5:10 a.m. - cold and ended up hotter than hell itself in Lordsburg, New Mexico on Interstate 10 – 22 miles from the Arizona border. We skirted Mexico a good part of the day. But along the way, we went through a place called Iraan, Texas, and near the town of Iraan, located in Pecos County, Texas, was a ton of windmills spinning. There were lines, groups, miles, hundreds - no thousands of windmills running in this area. I just thought it was ironic because it was located in Iraan, Texas and they are using an alternate source to get electricity. No oil in Iraan, Texas. What’s with that Mr. Bush?
Ed said that every time we go west of the Mississippi, we lose a few miles per gallon in the bike. We did this time, too. However, after eating at Rosario’s last night on the outskirts of San Antonio, a very delicious Mexican restaurant, we had our own jet propellant – or an alternate fuel to propel the bike (he he he.) Regular gas isn’t as expensive as we thought it was going to be but in the desert it is higher than the cities. Indeed, the price of gas still isn’t anything like Alaska and Canada.
As we were driving on the Interstate along the line of Mexico most of the day almost everything on the radio was in Spanish. If you work at a Denny’s or McDonalds you need to be bi-lingual. It reached 97 degrees when we got in to New Mexico. We were doing fine with the heat until we reached construction and everything came to a stop. Now anyone who is acquainted with me at all knows that I am afraid of that kind of heat on a motorcycle. I go in to panic mode. There is no shade anywhere in sight and the sun is in full bloom. My fight or flight mode kicked in. I did everything I could do not to go berserk. There was just one-lane opened on our side of the freeway. We were going up a steep grade but we were behind one heavy construction vehicle and a light construction truck. The line of vehicles behind the construction crew was at a standstill on the freeway for about a half hour. Talk about Ed doing some fancy talking to calm me down…Things weren’t very pretty at that time. I was so frightened. We finally got going and I settled down. I have the same thing to look forward to tomorrow…… I hope it rains.
Today we stopped at a rest stop for a couple minutes and I went in to the restrooms. On my way out I saw a sign that said “Watch out for Snakes.” It would have been more helpful if I would have read that sign on the way in.
Everywhere we go people stop and ask us if they can look at our rig. I guess the wanderlust comes out in people and they start dreaming about doing a motorcycle trip like the kind we do each year. On the other hand, Ed had a little change of heart today when he told a man it is probably a good day to be in a car. It really was hot…
