Dunes and More Dunes!

June 20, 2008

So today was a driving day not many sights to be seen. I got a late start from the hostel since I spent most the morning planning my route for the next week. I decided to make a big change my original plan and I want to spend more time in the mountains, seeing that I’m getting a little just a little bit sick of the desert for now. So as of today I began heading north to Colorado! I have a laundry list of things to do up there and I cannot wait to get into the mountains! It’s already pretty cold where I am now. So I left the hostel and I headed north. I passed through the White Sands Missile Range which takes up almost ¾ the length of New Mexico. I made sure not to make any deviations from my route like I did in Texas whilst passing through the missile range. I did not need any incoming to make my trip more adventurous. I did have one stop for today, and that was the White Sands National Monument. Its absolutely amazing there, it’s like someone took the most perfect white sand beaches from Hawaii and put them in the middle of the desert minus the water and the palm trees and plus the heat. It was an awesome drive through the park, it’s a small park but amazing at the same time. It is better though to go in the evenings to see the sun sets however it just wasn’t in my schedule. There were a lot of people there sledding down the dunes, which looked like fun but I couldn’t find the room to put a sled on Mav. The one downside to White Sands is that part of the park is on unpaved roads which are basically just sand, and one thing with motorcycles and sand is that they do not mix well. Mav liked the sand so much in one parking lot that he laid down in it on my ankle. So white sands national monument was pretty nice to drive though, I did one hike into the desert but the heat was just too much and I abbreviated it slightly. The rest of the day I spent riding north along the Rio Grande which was a welcome relief from the desert heat again. All along the river is tons of chili pepper farms, tons of them, and a good number of onion farms, and for those of you who know me next to motorcycles in the sand I hate onions just as much! The chili farms were pretty cool to see they were just acres and acres of perfectly aligned trees which looked like they were in a lake because here the farmers basically flood the fields to irrigate their trees. I made camp tonight along the Rio Grande at a park called something something starting with a P on the dam. It’s another New Mexico State park which is obviously next to a dam. Tomorrow morning I’m getting up early to make my way further north. My first stop is a town called, get this… Truth or Consequences, yes I didn’t believe it myself, but I will surely take a picture for proof!

June 21, 2008

Let me tell you about the best $8 I have ever spent… So I arose from a great nights sleep probably the best I’ve had at a campground yet seeing that it was nice a cool last night. I pack up hop on ole Mav and I head out. I exit the campground and I pull on to the Hwy 187 and I pull the clutch in and I shift into a might highway merging third gear and much to my surprise there is no shifter there. That is odd, I glance down in hopes that my foot just slipped but no, sadly no. My shifter is hanging there by the last bead of weld on it so I swiftly pull an evasive maneuver and get off the highway and I roll the bike into a parking lot. I dismount to inspect my new damages and yes my worst fear was imagined, I had sheared off my shift lever, and it was no longer there. Ok don’t panic I’ve been in worse situations this week. After inspecting the damage some more I come to the realization that I must have damaged the weld from the multiple incidents that Mav had been laid down in the past week. So I think about what my options are. I recently got a new towing company so I could always get them to tow me to a motorcycle supply shop, but where and I only have a limited range on how far I can be towed. I could have the part over nighted to me and I could stay at the campground again. I could use the JB weld I brought, glue the shifter back together and hope it gets me to the next town, or I could put everything I have in a bag and start walking home. Ok no to that last idea, so I call my new motorcycle towing company, and the guy on the other line actually knows what he’s talking about albeit he talks a lot but he was helpful. So he finds me a towing company that will pick me up and take me to the next town which get this, the name of the town is ‘Truth or Consequences’ So I get on the blackberry and I start to look for motorcycle supply stores in Truth or Consequences, and there is one, its called Crazy Richards Motorcycle Supply, and well this crazy fella keeps some crazy hours because he didn’t show up to open up shop until two hours after his recorded message says the open. So I think to myself ok I could put all my eggs in the basket for this Richard dude or I could possibly find a place that could weld my shifter back together. Meanwhile I must add, the parking lot I pull into is none other than an onion packaging warehouse, so I’m waiting there over an hour next to tons and tons of onions, my worst nightmare had come true. So the towing company arrives, and I tell him my story he’s helpful and he says that the Richard fella is not the most reliable kind of guy, and he suggest a welding place that he passed on his way out which just opened. So we get into T&C, that’s what the locals call the town for short, and the towing guy drops me off at John’s welding shop, and a fine shop indeed. I take my shifter to John and he just smiles at me and says sure I can fix this all my boys used to ride dirt bikes. I said all I need is to get me to the next town and he replied with a ‘son this isn’t just going to get you to the next town its going to get you around the world’ and with that I placed rest of my trip into John’s hands and before the towing guy got the paperwork all finished for me to sign john had made me a like new shifter, and all for just eight bucks! So what could have been a two day disaster and cost me hundreds of dollars turned into a minor glitch in my ride for the day. The rest of the day was flawless infact it was some of the best riding I had done in a while. I was heading north towards Santa Fe where I would be staying the night and I passed through a town called Socorro, and I found the first authentic Mexican place I could find and I had the most amazing burrito ever at Sophia’s Cafe! In no time I was back on the road I followed hwy 60 for a good long while and it ran along side two paralle Burlington Northern Santa Fe train tracks. Let me tell you there was TONS of trains out today too, I saw double stacked trains, liquit cars, some sort of dry heap cars, everything and anything and it was cool to see them all and how long they were, it was rediculious. Since I was in the middle of no where i could see the beginning and end of each train and they stretched for miles! The ride to santa fe was such a relief, I was at altitude now and it was much cooler, almost in the upper 60s. No santa fe is quite a town, it used to be where all the wealthy Californians would go to, to escape the summer heat. It’s a ski town and a desert town all in one. There are also a lot of religious influences there with the different churches and missions which began there. There are tons and tons of restaurants, art galleriers, and shops, touristy but not at the same time, it had a sense of class to it. I walked around Santa Fe for a good couple hours got some amazing dinner at this italina place and I headed to Hyde Memorial State Park in the Santa Fe National Forest, where I am now typing this by fireside, yup that’s right tonight I made my first camp fire. So far this is the only campground that has allowed firest due to all the desert camp grounds being under water restrictions and they have a big fear of forest fires. Tomorrow should be another good riding day in the mountains as I head further north and on into Colorado!

June 22, 2008

Ah relief… the mountains finally. So as of today I have left the arid desert and have moved to higher elevations. Tonight I am residing in Monarch Colorado which is about 90 miles north of the New Mexican Colorado border. But let me tell you the ride today through Northern New Mexico was amazing, and I cannot say enough about Santa Fe, what an amazing city. When I left my campsite I decided to keep heading up the mountain I was on which was located in Carson National Forest. So I headed up the mountain lots of switch backs and lots of cyclists pumping away up the hill. So I cruised for about 12 miles or so with some amazing views of the city of Santa Fe below. When I got to the top turns out there was a ski resort up there. Santa Fe Ski that is, and it was the first federally operated ski resort I have ever seen in my life. Since the mountain resides in a national forest the ski resort is therefore operated by the national park service which I thought was kind of interesting. Also I should add that today was the first day I saw snow since I was in Colorado this past spring. All the mountains in New Mexico and Colorado were all snow capped, which was pretty awesome to see. After cruising down the mountain I did one more drive through Santa Fe and it was on to the highway. Today’s ride was the mountain ride I was waiting for, and being Sunday there were tons of motorcycles out as well. My route today zig zagged its way through the mountains of northern New Mexico and through tons of small mountain towns. I was getting so high up into the mountains that it began resembling the alps or something, not what you would expect from New Mexico. There were acres and acres of green fields with creeks running through them back dropped with gigantic snowcapped mountains. I was half expecting the entire Von Trapp family to come running over the next ridge to the tune of doe a deer. As I was snaking my way through the Carson National Forest… yes I know this thing went on forever, I kept seeing signs for ‘Forest Road’ and they were very enticing dirt roads to say the least so I pulled over at one checked that it was on the Garmin I plotted out a loop that would bring me back to the highway and I headed into the woods for some good dual sport riding. This was must different than the Chico Road adventure I had the week earlier, although the thought of something happening lingered in my mind for a bit. The forest roads were soft dirt as opposed to jagged rocks, and it was much much cooler among the trees and furthermore I didn’t have to worry about a fence being locked or anything because this was all public property. Well the ride through the woods was everything and more, very relaxing, Mav only went down once on a steep descent with a lot of loose rocks. After about eight or so miles in the woods I met back up with the highway and I proceeded on my way. All through the morning and afternoon I kept seeing this blue Kawasaki Versys which was loaded down with tons of gear. So I kept bumping into this other adventurer and at one scenic overlook that I stopped at to take some pictures he stopped too, and turns out we had a lot in common. The guys name was Stew and he was from Alberta Canada. He had been on the road for about a month and a half now and had quit his job got a bike and had been touring around the southwestern American states since then. He told me about some good places to go around Colorado that had had been. It was ironic also because I was asking him how long he was going to be traveling for and he said that he had a wedding to go to in august so he was ending his trip at the wedding which is exactly what I am doing too. I’ve got a wedding in august that I have to be back for which seems like a convenient end date. So we exchanged some more stories, and it was interesting because Stew had one more piece of gear that I definitely did not have, strapped to back of his bike in a waterproof bag was a guitar! So back on the road, I passed through a town called Taos New Mexico, which I wish I could have stopped in but I had to get to my big destination for the day before the park closed, which was Great Sand Dunes National Park! So my ride to the park was quite a rough one, the weather had kicked in and the rain and wind was relentless. Luckily my Joe Rocket pants and Jacket kept me nice a dry. Great Sands was pretty different than White Sands. Great Sands lies at the base of snow capped mountains and in front of them is a huge river which to my surprise you actually have to walk through the river to get to the dunes; you’d think that the national park service would put a bridge over the river. The dunes were utterly gigantic, I wanted to walk to the top of them, but it was a good 2 hour hike to the top of the dunes. From the dunes I headed to further north to Monarch Colorado where I bedded down for the night.