Round Trip Route from Albuquerque to Roswell
We met up at the Chevron at Central and Tramway. I pulled in about 9:15 am and RR pulled in a couple minutes later. We chatted for a bit and waited to see if anyone else would show up. No one else had expressed interest but sometimes more people show up for a ride that was expected. No one else came by so we pulled out about 9:30, got right on I-40 and headed east to Clines Corners.
It was cold. Temp was in the 30's all the way to Clines Corners and we were doing 75-80. I was halfway prepared for a cold ride and David was too so we were chilled but we survived. Riding in cold weather is an attempt to keep from freezing. It's not really possible to stay warm, just not so cold that you start to stiffen up. We got off I-40 at Clines Corners and got on US-285 south. Our speed dropped a bit but we still kept up a good pace. Went through Encino which doesn't have much anymore. As Dot and the Thursday gang from AMRG found out, there is no longer any gas in Encino. The town has pretty much closed down.
Our first gas stop was in Vaughn. This town is still thriving. It has two gas stations and both also have a convenience store. There's an Allsups in the middle of town and Lalo's on the far east side of town. We stopped at the Allsups, gassed up, used the bathroom and got some refreshment. I had my usual chocolate milk. We met a guy there who was hitching his way to Kansas. Said he had a new job there. He was traveling very light, nothing but a small backpack that was stuffed full. He was a talkative fellow and was genuinely interested in hearing all about our bikes. Eventually we had to get going. We wished him good luck and took off down 285 for Roswell and, we hoped, lots of aliens.
Diner in Vaughn
The road to Roswell is all high-speed highway. There are no routes that take you on slower back roads. Even so, it was a great ride. I'm always glad to get out on the open road on the bike and let random thoughts wander in and out of my head. It's kind of refreshing in the same way that dreams will refresh your mind. When you're out on the open road on a motorcycle, there is no conversation with others like you have in a car and since I found out I don't like to listen to music when I ride, there is total solitude. I need that from time to time.
The Long Road
Windmill pic for Merrilou
David rides a Honda CBR1000. For those that don't know, it's fast! Much much faster than my old Honda GL650. David was nice though, he kept to a sane speed for the entire ride. He said he touched 90 a few times but backed down as soon as he noticed it. There were only a couple times when he hit the throttle and became just a speck in the blink of my eye! I want a sport bike but I know I'll just get into trouble with it. First there's the purchase price. Second is the cost of insurance. Third is the ever rising cost of insurance as I rack up the speeding tickets. I think I should be happy with my GL650 and it's top speed of just 105. Do I really need a bike that can do over 150 mph? (Yes, but...)
David and his CBR1000
We pulled into Roswell at about 1 PM or so. We stayed on the main drag all the way through town just to scope out all the options. We wanted to find a place to get some lunch and visit a couple tourist traps to search for aliens. Most of the food options were national chains but there were two places that caught my eye. One was Cattleman's Steak House and the other was the Portofino Italian Restaurant. Portofino's won the toss and we turned around. Portofino's was casual but nice. I would say that David and I, in our motorcycle attire, were the worst dressed in the place but we weren't too far from the norm. No one stared. I had a friend in the Navy who was from New York city and he used to tell me stories of being stared at all through the meal if they showed up out of character in any way. I'm afraid the fine italian food at Portofino's was lost on me though. I'm not familiar with the fare and although I'm sure it was good italian, I'm not the best one to judge. I had a lunch sandwich of some sort with a fancy italian name. It had chicken in it plus an italian sauce of some sort and it was served in a kind of "bun" that had a continuous crust on the outside and a soft bread on the inside that was only a half-inch thick overall. I'm afraid I'm showing my ignorance here. It was good though and very filling. We left very satisfied and the visit was easy on the wallet too.
We got back on the main drag and headed up the street a bit to a tourist trap I spotted on the way in. We ended up at the Official UFO Museum. We didn't really have time to go through the museum portion and asked if we could just go into the gift shop. Of course, we had to get "stickered" before they would let us into the gift shop. David got a t-shirt for his mom and I got a stuffed alien for Merrilou. On the way back to the bikes, we played tourist and took pics of every alien we could see and there were plenty!
The excuse, sorry I meant reason, we came here.
David got lucky and caught a real UFO on camera trying to steal our bikes!
The long road back...
We gassed up in Vaughn then continued north to I-40 where we joined the throngs of people headed west. We kept up a brisk pace, at least 5 over the limit all the way. As we got closer to Albuquerque the sky was looking pretty ominous. I thought it was going to open up all over us but we made it home ahead of the storm. (Turned out the actual storm didn't hit until after midnight sometime.)
Nasty-looking storm clouds
We stayed on I-40 al the way to the Big-I then took I-25 north. I got off at Osuna waving David on as I passed him. He lives in Rio Rancho and was probably going to take Paseo Del Norte a couple miles further up I-25.
I pulled into the garage at about 6:30 pm and gave Merrilou her furry little green thing [grin]. She loved it!
It was a good day.
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