Day 8: Las vegas, NM to Albuquerque

First of all, a picture or two from last night. This is Nancy trying out my bike for size. She is desperately seeking a mid-life crisis of her own - we suggested a tattoo. Thanks for these Kevin.

Today has been a great motorcycling day, and I have experience all four seasons over the course of it! The wind had abated a little since yesterday, and I left Las Vegas bound for Santa Fe. The riding was great as I travelled along the Santa Fe  trail, through the Pecos national park. The roads had a mixture of long sweeping fast bends, and more technical twisty sections. The bike, despite its size, was up to the job, and once moving is well balanced, most of the weight being low down. Manoeuvring at low speed can be hard work though.

 The old Route 66 running parallel to the interstate in the distance

A gate to nowhere!

The road undulated, but overall climbed to Santa Fe, which is over 7000ft above sea level, making it the highest state capitol in the US. This would explain why it was getting colder, and by the time I got there it was snowing.

When Route 66 was first built in the late 1920s this was the route that it took - through Santa Fe. In the 30s, the Governor of New Mexico fell out with the Mayor of Santa Fe, and ordered that the route be realigned to run directly from Santa Rosa to Albuquerque, thus cutting out the Santa Fe loop, and denying the town of its passing trade. Many people travelling the route today take this more direct later alignment, but I wanted to do this loop as I'd heard (rightly, as it turns out) that the roads and scenery were very good.

Snow in Santa Fe in April.

The architecture in the town is Adobe style, and very attractive. The centre is full of art galleries and little expensive looking boutiques. I reckon that it must have the most Art Galleries per capita than any other town I've been to. There were also more homeless people begging in the street than I'd seen since Chicago - obviously there are extremes of wealth here.

I decided to wait and see if the snow would stop so had a cup of coffee and slice of the most delicious chocolate cream pie! It did stop after a while, and I was assured that Albuquerque would be a good deal warmer as it wasn't so high, so I continued my journey along the Santa Fe trail, to Madrid.

I wanted to go to Madrid as it had been featured in a number of movies, most recently Paul, but probably the biggest selling was Wild Hogs. The film takes place during the Madrid chilli festival. Up until then Madrid didn't have a chilli festival. It does now!

Talking to a few people around town there are obviously mixed feelings about this film. Some people did very well out of it - Disney built a diner movie set for the film, pictured above, and the current owner makes plenty selling Wild Hogs memorabilia and t-shirts. Others went out of business because Disney shut the town down for 3 months over the tourist season whilst making the film.
I think my favourite film that was made here though is The Man Who Fell to Earth, staring David Bowie. I must re-watch that when I get home.

Now it was more fantastic riding to Albuquerque, where I am staying tonight. I pulled over at one point to take some photos, and who should come past in the other direction - yes, the Aussies. I'm at the same hotel as them again, so I expect some more revelry in the bar tonight. In the mean time, I can't resist one more shot of the New Mexico landscape:

Today's route and more photos are here:


Today's Mileage: 149
Total Trip Mileage:1663

Weekly Countdown: 7 Plotting the route

Another week passes and the excitement is beginning to mount, things are coming together, and it's getting closer now.

The eBay items all sold, and in all I made over £200! Quite a result I think, and so I'll start to have a look for more items to sell. However, unless I get a largish windfall in the next 7 weeks (the lottery tickets have been bought!), I think that I'll have to resign myself to not having quite enough, and letting the plastic take the strain.

As I mentioned in my last post, the new maps for the GPS arrived, and so this week I've spent some time inputting Points of Interest (PoIs), and playing around with routes. At the moment, my itinerary is looking like this:


Week 1:
18April, Monday: Arrive in Chicago
19April, Tuesday: Pick up bike & ride to Bloomington, IL
20April, Wednesday: Ride to St. Louis, MO
21April, Thursday: On to Springfield, MO
22April,  Friday: Overnight in Tulsa, OK
23April, Saturday: Ride to Clinton, OK
24April, Sunday: Ride to Amarillo, TX

Week 2:
25April, Monday: Ride to Santa Fe, NM
26April, Tuesday: Rest day in Santa Fe
27April, Wednesday: Ride to Holbrook, AZ

28April, Thursday: Sidetrip to Grand Canyon, AZ
29April, Friday: Ride to Needles, CA (Happy Birthday Simon, and happy wedding to William and Kate)
30April, Saturday: Laughlin River Run
01May, Sunday: Side trip to Las Vegas, NV

Week 3:
02May, Monday: Rest day in Las Vegas.
03May, Tuesday: Back onto Route 66 and ride to Victorville, CA
04May,  Wednesday: The last stage of my Rt66 adventure to Santa Monica - I've done it! Probably overnight up the coast somewhere (Santa Barbara?).
05May, Thursday: Continue up the PCH to Monterey, CA
06May, Friday: The last full day - make it to San Fransisco
07May, Saturday: Return Bike & Fly Home
08May, Sunday: Arrive back home
I'm sure it'll be fine tuned and tweaked, right up until my departure, and probably during the trip too. For example, my gut feeling is that the second half, from Texas onwards, will be the more interesting part, so I'm looking at whether I should speed up the first part so I can spend more time on the second.

Of course, the trip is not just about riding across America, it's about experiencing the places and meeting the people, so if I find somewhere that's really nice I will spend a bit of time there. Equally if there's not much of interest around I can zip onto the Interstate for a bit.

This week I'm going to continue with the GPS side of things, and, most importantly, decide on my travel arrangements to and from the US.

Days to departure: 49
Paydays to departure: Payday today, so I suppose just 1 left.
Funding: $$$Covered by my credit limit$$$

A Harley in Summer

Re-reading my last post about renting an Electraglide reminded me that we (SWMBO & I) have rented one before.

It was a few years ago in the middle of August when we were visiting Las Vegas. We rented the Electraglide for a couple of days during a trip there, from EagleRider I think? Whatever.

Now, when riding in the UK, even on the hottest day there has ever been, you know that once you get moving, with a bit of a breeze in the face, you will be comfortably cool. That's not the case in Vegas in August.

We turned up to pick the bike up, and being ATGATT (all the gear all the time) type riders, we asked about borrowing leather jackets. Well the guy at the rental place looked at us like we were from another planet (which in a sense we were, I guess), and pointed to the rack of gear, which was so full it was clear none of his other punters that day had availed themselves of that service. He muttered something about it being far too hot for jackets, but, if we wanted.......

He was right of course. Even the obligatory crash helmets proved to be almost too much, and soon after we set off we were in t-shirts & jeans, with nothing more than sun-screen for protection. Not much good for gravel rash, I wouldn't think - thankfully we never had to find out.

So we picked up the bike, along with another guy who was from NYC, and asked about a good route that we could take. The guy in the shop advised use to travel out of Vegas, and head for the Hoover Dam, over that into Arizona, and carry on until we got to mile marker 14. "Once there, look for a small road on your right", he said. "That will take you down to the [Colorado] river. When you get there, take off you helmets, watches and shoes and jump right in."

The 3 of us set off, went over the dam, and sure enough, found this small twisty road at mile marker 14 that took us down to the river. It is technically a river at that point, but it is so wide it looks more like a lake! And we did just as he said (except I left my trainers on - you never know what's on a river bed to stick in your foot!). It was bliss. We cooled of in that river, must have been for 30 minutes, and didn't want to get out.

Eventually we decided it was time to get out, and we got back on the bike dripping wet, and set off back the way we had come. I can say, with no word of a lie, that by the time we reached the Hoover Dam again, 14 miles later, we were bone dry, it was that hot. Going over the dam, the traffic was slow, it was the middle of the day, and so, so hot. SWMBO was starting to overheat, I was scared that she was getting heat stroke (I've never seen a redder face!), so we stopped at a place called Boulder City, where the guy from NYC bought her a root beer (yuk!), and then carried on his own way. Instead we found a nice air-conditioned cafe and had a couple cold, cold Buds, before heading back to Vegas.

We went back out on the bike later that evening and cruised up and down the Strip, and went to the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino and posed there for a bit. But I had learnt my lesson - August is not the time to be riding through the desert on a bike - which is why I'm going in May!