but more on that later.
today was a bad day. in many respects. this is the first truly bad day of the trip (although a lot of people have been commenting that yesterday seemed like a bad day. it had bad parts, but wasn't terrible).
it really started last night, after looking at the whole route situation, and staying up too late. i needed an early start if i wanted any chance at making my destinations, and i didn't get it since i was too sluggish in the morning. i was still in fairly good spirits, in spite of the fact that the weather was looking a little iffy.
unfortunately, things just kind of went downhill. first off, eastern new mexico is boring. lots of plains and long, very straight roads. if you combined western NM and eastern AZ, it would be an awesome state, but the other sides suck. then the weather went bad, and i got cold, wet and miserable. it wasn't exactly raining, but the water was just kind of hanging in the air and getting everything wet. after stopping about 4 times to layer up and waterproof the camping gear (i was supposed to use it tonight), i was still wet and cold but, thankfully, in need of gas. that meant stopping.
the next town was encino, which is just about smack in the middle of the state. unfortunately, encino doesn't have a gas station. the one highlight of the day, i would say, is that i met a number of nice people who were willing to help me out. i stopped at what looked like a gas station, but turned out to be a little store that sold mostly budweiser and soda. the shopkeeper let me hang out as long as i needed, and informed me that there was gas 15 miles down the road in vaughn. after warming up enough to make it, i left and finally pulled into the gas station, where i filled the bike and myself (with hot coffee). again, the people were great and let me hang out long enough to thaw out.
after vaughn, things got a bit better weather-wise, but the roads were still long and boring. so long and boring, in fact, that i only took one picture all day. here it is:
there really wasn't much change from this.
after all the stopping, i pulled into clovis, the last town before texas, much later than intended for lunch. i broke my no-fast-food rule since the diner i tried only had burgers (literally) and i've eaten far too many of those recently. so it was subway.
then it was texas. let me just say that i am not impressed. first off, i lost an hour (stupid time zones), so i didn't get into the state until 3pm. then, the first thing i passed was a feed lot. let me tell you, all the horror stories you hear about the treatment of cattle in those things, as far as i could tell from 70mph, is pretty accurate. not a very positive introduction to the state, especially since it was in a town charmingly called "bovina."
next up was hereford, which is the beef capital of the world, apparently. more feed lots and lots of billboards advertising feed (ramp: cow's favorite starter feed. ramp in the tank, money in the bank). oh, and more long, boring, straight roads. and more clouds. and a little more rain (thankfully not much).
after all this, i made a new game plan: get out of texas as soon as possible.
unfortunately, black kettle was out early on, since it was a further 3.5 hours from the border, if i made good time. plus, a hot shower sounded really good, which means palo duro canyon was sounding less and less compelling.
so where am i? right now, i'm sitting in a holiday inn express just east of amarillo. this was a strategic decision as much as anything. besides not wanting to camp, had i gone to palo duro (which i could have made easily), i would have had to come up through amarillo tomorrow morning, after packing up and coming out of the canyon. by staying the night here, i save probably close to 90 minutes off of my day tomorrow, and am that much closer to leaving this wretched state.
today was really frustrating for me mentally as well as physically. in addition to being cold and wet, i was having negative feelings almost all day. it hardly took any time at all before i was thinking about turning back to bosque and staying with my cousins for another day (they graciously offered), or stopping early and crashing somewhere, or, worst of all, turning north and heading home. i had to work through these feelings basically mile by mile, thinking about everything i was looking forward to further down the road, and how much i woudl regret not finishing. at the very least, i didn't want to let some lousy weather beat me, especially when i'm an all-season rider back home. it was just all the different factors added up that made it as bad as it was.
but, i'm in much better spirits now. i had a nice shower, dinner at denny's (which is actually fantastic for cheap food), and i'm watching bad tv while i write this. the bike is gassed up, i'm all packed and i'm about to head to bed for a good night's sleep. i'm looking forward to getting back on the road tomorrow, and getting the hell out of dodge.
or, in this case, amarillo.
rftc,
scott
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