Day 38...At highway speeds

Day 38…Thursday, July 17^th.     I travel via interstate from Tucson AZ, through NM, to El Paso, TX.  It was a blur.  But I DID get to see El Paso, the city immortalized by Marty Robbins...El Paso

The day did not get off to an auspicious start.  I went out to ‘preflight’ the motorcycle first thing this morning.  I do this every morning to make sure the fluids are all within normal operating range, the tires have the right pressure, and all the big pieces are firmly attached to the bike.  When you are putting yourself out there at highway speeds you owe it to yourself to make sure the bike is safe to ride.  I’ve given the bike a pounding over the past 38 days and when I get it home it is going to be overdue for a good maintenance.   Anyway, I started to put the key in the handlebar lock/ignition and it slipped from my old and shaky fingers.  It went down, down, down, into the bowels of the engine compartment by way of the forks and gas tank.  Since the bike is all enclosed there was no way to fish it out.  Luckily, I had a spare key in my wallet and I got the bike ready for the road.  Then I drove about a half dozen laps around the parking lot bouncing it, hitting pot holes, and generally riding like an idiot to try to get the key to work its way out.  No luck.  While riding around Davis-Monthan I saw their Air Park and stopped to take a few photos.  The best one?  The mighty F-4 Phantom II.  I get emotional when I stand next to my grand old bird.

 

The best of the best...F4-D, Phantom II

the F-105 "Thud"

the F-100 "Hun"

U-2 "Dragon Lady"

 

OV-10 "Bronco"

 

the O-1 "Bird dog"

A-10 "Warthog"

Since I didn’t want to get too far without a spare key I wound my way to the opposite side of town to the BMW dealer to get a new key.  They sold the blanks, but did not cut them.  So $8.50 later I set out to find an ACE hardware store that could cut the key.  I found one a couple of miles down the road and got the key made…so I have a spare again.

This makes me think of things I have lost on this trip.  I lost a pair of sunglasses that I had stowed in the mesh portion of the back bag.  In a high wind it must have vibrated up and been blown away.  Gloves…I have lost 3 gloves.  Since they are all lost at highway speed they were well and truly lost by the time I discovered they had gone missing.  Luckily, I wear cheap Home Depot lightweight multipurpose gloves and they can be easily, and cheaply, replaced.  I have also lost 3 lens caps for my camera.  I carry the camera slung diagonally around my body and I lost two caps before I realized it would be wise to invest in a lens cap retainer strap.  Then one day I took a photo at 70mph while driving into a 20mph headwind.  The force of the wind ripped the retaining strap off the lens and I saw it go.  I swung around to pick it up, but it had broken when it hit the road.

On the plus side, I have found about 19 cents in parking lots (and two Canadian $1 coins) mostly in pennies.

It is hard to get worked up about the countryside while driving on an interstate at breakneck speeds.  I’m sure the planners TRIED to put the interstates in interesting places, but for me…it didn’t really work.  The roads are wide and generally fenced off from the countryside.  Stopping to take a photo puts you at risk from people who are driving FAST and usually talking or texting on their phones.  Parking on the side of the interstate is not fun and I worry that the wind from passing trucks will knock the bike off the kickstand.  So I don’t stop much.  Then there are the rest areas.  Some are nicer than others, and here in the southwest they are mostly the ‘not so nice’ ones.  There is no green grass (I understand why in this environment) and of course there are no trees under which to park.  This means if you spend 15 minutes stretching your legs and taking care of the necessary, by the time you return to the bike you can just about boil water on the gas tank and it takes gloves to grab the black handlebar grips.

All that being said, I do enjoy driving the southwest US.  Like I said in yesterday’s post, I really enjoy the vistas and the grand sweeping history of discovery, expansion, and personal effort to tame a wild land that is often inimical to man and domestic beast.  I just think I’d enjoy it more off the interstate system.

There was a rainstorm that passed through the area in the recent past.  There are still some puddles in the low spots, but the real way to tell is to look at the ocotillo cactus plants.  After a rain they sprout leaves and put out blossoms in a race with the dry weather that will be just around the corner.  The ocotillos were all leafed out, and some sported their beautiful orange blossoms.  Unfortunately at 75mph it’s a bit tough to photograph one.

As I approached Tombstone today I noticed that the vegetation became more lush and there was actually grass in the pastures that would feed livestock.  A few miles out of town to the east and it returned again to the barren and largely featureless landscape that predominates the area.

 

 

I saw a LOT of Border Patrol vehicles today and there are road signs warning of potential delays and ID checks.  The only checkpoint that I had to go through, however, was in New Mexico.  For some reason they didn’t check the bike for illegals and I was waived through without even stopping.

The temperature was more tolerable today.  I don’t think I saw a temperature above 98 or so while I was driving.  There was a high, thin, cloud cover for part of the day.  Off to my north I could see isolated thunderstorms.  I could even see the lightning in a couple of them.  But they all stayed off to the north and they didn’t affect my ride.  But they did offer some pretty dramatic cloud formations and maybe they helped keep the temps down.

 

When I got to El Paso I went immediately to Fort Bliss to get a room for the night.  There was no room in the inn.  This is the first installation from which I’ve been turned away for the night.  Too bad.  So I ended up in what is probably the nicest Motel 6 I’ve stayed at on the trip and for which I paid the least.  I might also note that gasoline is a dollar a gallon cheaper in New Mexico and Texas than it was in California and Arizona.

Tomorrow I have to make a decision on the route I want to take home.  If I head due east I will bisect the road I need to take to Denver and home.  I will have driven a full circle, but I will not have done the southernmost tip of Texas.  If I turn southeast I can parallel the border, see some new territory, and will have actually traveled the perimeter of the US.  Going the long way will add nearly a week to my trip and the scenery will be much the same for about 850 miles.  I hate the idea of not going the long way, but at the same time I’m watching the calendar and my budget and it may make more sense to cut a few days out of the loop.  I’ll sleep on it and see if I come to any conclusions in my dreams