-Text from Whitley: "Your dad is here on his scoot. Trying to get him to stay through the weekend--he said he's only staying if you'll ride up."
-"I'll be there tomorrow."
Three months of first-time-parenting earned me 2 days off. So I decided to use 38 hours of it to ride to Taos and back--recharge the spirit a little.
Saturday.
Left early Saturday morning, under cloudy skies and a warm 70 degrees. By Fort Stockton it had dropped to 59. Then the mid-40s. Then it started to rain.
Not often it looks like this between Ft. Stockton and Pecos.
The sun finally broke through several hours south of Santa Fe. I arrived under sunny skies after 12 hours and 15 minutes. I was out of riding shape, worn out after 791 miles.
Outside of Whitley Manor.
KTAO Solar Bar.
Ate a homemade mexican food dinner. In bed in complete darkness at 8:30.
Sunday.
DB left Whitley's with me. DB: "I'm glad you got to do this. You'll be a better father because of it."
We rode out of town in the dark and cold. 31 degrees. The heavy fog over the pass to Las Vegas had blanketed the sides of the road in frost. My helmet's visor iced over. It was still dark and the fog was so thick DB couldn't tell which way the road twisted. The bike indicated 25 degrees, 9,450 feet.
At the gas station in Las Vegas a little after 7am--I wasn't fast enough to catch the ice covering my sleeve.
I was, however, able to catch it covering DB's windshield.
The Las Vegas State Bank sign flashed 27 degrees. The temps would steadily rise into the mid-40s. Didn't break 50 until the west side of San Antonio.
From Las Vegas (NM), it's all downhill home. My camera defrosted enough to take a few shots leaving the mountains. The complete darkness and fog prevented any pics at higher elevation.
South 84:
West of Clovis we ran down a train. (It's running down the left hand side of the following pictures.)
I took probably 15 of these shots. Love to see trains out here.
Home by dark 12 hours later. No deer, thank goodness. Got a hug from my wife and son. Nice welcome.
