Day 2 of my 22′ Rocky Mountain tour. Yep, still hot as hell, but I can actually leave at sunrise this time.
When you are blasting across West Texas, there is not much to photograph. When it’s hot, the sun is in your eyes, the stench of oil drilling and your growing body odor starts to fill your helmet, the desire to stop and take a picture is small.
I decided that I’d paint with words and get to Albuquerque ASAP.
I woke up at 6am, had the continental breakfast, and packed all my stuff. This was comical in hindsight, as after a month on the road I had packing down to a science. Today was a lot of ‘Where the heck does this go? Why is this in this bag? Where did this go again?’. Or my personal favorite, lock both hard cases, and then find the thing that goes in the bottom of the hard case on the counter unpacked.
Motorcycle touring is great I promise!
Leave at 7am, when the weather was roughly 70 degrees and the sun was just cresting the horizon at my back, was glorious. Glorious compared to the day prior that is. Cool wind filled my helmet, the motorcycle putted along, traffic was non-existent, and there was no strong afternoon wind yet. For the record, a hot head wind on a motorcycle is like trying to read in a hot outdoor library. Your stuff is being blown this way and that, it’s uncomfortable, time slows down because all you hear is KHHHHTTTWOOOOOOSHHHHKKTTT and all you can think of is why the heck did they make a hot outdoor library?
Wait I did as a literary device.
Headwinds are hard. There would be many more on the trip. If you are cruising at 65mph into a 20mph headwind, it feels like you’re rolling at 85mph which is considerably more uncomfortable. Also wind resistance is a squared proportional function so every little bit hurts way more than you’d think it should. Double your speed and get four times the wind resistance.
Luckily the ride was much better after a full sleep and cool temp morning, so I arrived at my sister’s house in Albuquerque around noon. The perks of a full pantry, air conditioning, and a large clean bed were already becoming more enjoyable than usual only two days in to my trip. Passing over the Sandia range yielded much cooler temperatures (92 instead of 104 wow!) in New Mexico, so I could taste the relief that the Rockies were going to provide.
I had another fantastic Mexican meal at a local restaurant, and my 16 year old niece even offered to take me to the gym the next morning. The kids are alright I guess.
By far the most important task of the day was getting Abby’s nails done. Abby is my sister’s pupperino:
I also had my first hot tub of the trip. Every time I’m in a hot tub I immediately consider how I could own my own.
In Texas. In the summer.
I promptly reconsider how I can have more friends in great places with hot tubs that I can sit in on the occasional motorcycle trip. This very much makes more sense to me.
After 12hrs of riding in two days, the hot tub was legit. It was the Bee’s Knee’s. It slapped. It had fit the bill. It was doing the good work.
The next day I had to prepare to venture north, into the elevation of the southern Rockies, towards cooler temperatures and the possibility of rain. All things I was very much OK with.