Saturday, September 2
DAY 2: Iowa, Missouri and Kansas

I slept in a bit and was out on the road by 9:30AM. I couldn’t contact Sandy on her cell phone though before I left, I had a signal but when I dialed her number it wouldn’t even ring. I was heading toward Kansas City hoping her bike would be fixed today and we could resume our trip. After some meandering back roads I arrived at I-35 and slabbed south. I was cruising at a conservative speed since Sandy’s bike was the one with the fuzz buster. Then, I got passed by a guy riding a Boss Hoss and I gave chase for a while, but just a while, he was really hauling ass. I ran in to him later at a gas station, not a young guy at all, but really nice, he was chatting with all the motorcyclists at the gas station. I was about an hour north of Kansas City now so I gave Sandy a call. Good news, her bike was already fixed. They were just finishing up now. The problem was water damage in the multi connector box located in the front left of the bike, we didn’t even check there yesterday. I guess this is a problem on the older Ducs, the connector box isn’t waterproofed and after a while water gets in there and does all sorts of damage.

Sandy and I decided to meet up somewhere on I-70 west of Kansas City in a couple of hours. We were going to call each other around 2:30PM and see where we were at that time to figure out who would ride to meet up with whom. Three more stops and two more phone calls, we finally met up in Topeka about 4PM.

Immediately the weather turned to crap. It went from sunny and 80’s to rain and 60’s in about the span of thirty minutes. We stopped once to put on our rain liners and stopped again to put on more warmer layers, it was down right chilly and the sun was going down. At sundown we stopped for the night in Hays, KS at Motel 6, Sandy only had 5 hours of sleep last night so we decided not to push it today. We walked over to Whiskey Creek restaurant, which was recommended by the girl working the front counter at the motel. Good food and good beer.

Sunday, September 3
Day 3: Kansas, Oklahoma and New Mexico

We were out on the road by 8AM, no interstates for us this morning; we took a bunch of back roads that cut though Kansas in to Oklahoma and in to New Mexico. This way was just as fast as the interstate, the roads were empty and we kept our speeds up. In the early afternoon we reached Clayton, NM where we were originally planning on camping last night before Sandy’s bike broke down. I made a few short cuts in today’s route so we could still try to make today’s destination; Albuquerque, NM where we were going to spend the night with Sandy’s cousin.

The temperatures were cool today and as the clouds moved in it got a bit chilly. We got on it and headed for the mountains of New Mexico, wanting to ride though there before heading south to Albuquerque. The roads were nice and scenic, many twisties, also a bit of traffic. The cars were moving at a good pace, we didn’t even need to pass anyone, but then we all caught up to a slow Harley cruiser riding two-up and that was it, we couldn’t pass him, we were stuck behind him for miles.

Near Taos we found some rain and the pace got even slower. The rain wasn’t bad at all though and it did amplify the already crisp and fresh mountain air. We also saw a bit of deer here in the forests, and many more crossing the main streets in towns. As the sun started to drop toward the horizon we started to head toward Santa Fe. In the dark we jumped on I-25 for the last section of our ride in to Albuquerque. The temperatures were still nice and the traffic was moving fast. Then all the sudden, the traffic came to a halt as we encountered some gaper’s delay. There was an accident in the northbound lanes, as I passed the emergency vehicles I took a peek at what was lying in the road. Oh my. It was big. It was brown. It was a freakin’ bear.

We arrived in Albuquerque at around 9PM. I found the road the house was on, the driveway was sloped and gravel and unlit. The butterflies in my stomach instantly got agitated as I contemplated my decent to the house, locating the path of least resistance. I don’t like gravel. I really don’t like slopped gravel and I really, really don’t like any gravel in the dark. It went well considering I couldn’t see much. We parked the bikes in front of the house on the patio and went in.

Mary Ann, Sandy’s cousin, and Al, her husband, had an amazing spread of food waiting for us. Home made cheese ball and some crackers, chicken fajitas a la New Mexico , good ‘ol American apple pie and good beer and local wine. Sandy and I sat outside in the back yard with Mary Ann and Al eating and drinking and talking as the fire was burning in the outside fireplace near by. The night air was clean and cool and very pleasant. Sandy and I were beat. We laid out our sleeping bags in the living room next to the fire place and it was nighty-night.

Monday, September 4
Day 4: New Mexico

The day started out with New Mexico style home made breakfast burritos and coffee. We hung out and relaxed a bit, did some laundry. Yea, we actually had some dirty clothes to wash already. Sandy likes to keep her Duc clean so she washed her bike. We didn’t leave until 2PM since Mary Ann and Sandy had some catching up to do. Then it was time to leave and that was stressful for us shorty girls o heavy bikes. Al monitored the traffic on the road since there was no way I was going to stop at the top of the gravel hill to see if anything as coming. The coast was clear I pulled out of the gravel pit and on to the road. It was easier then I though. A few minutes later Sandy was behind me and we were heading for the northwest corner of New Mexico.

There was a bit of traffic on the interstate and we left later then anticipated so we decided to skip the twisty roads and just took 550 North still trying to make it to Mesa Verde by nightfall. 550 is designated as a scenic route on my map but I didn’t think it was all that scenic and it was pretty straight. I’d avoid it next time. We ran in to a small rain storm that lasted just a few minutes and arrived in Aztec, NM in the late afternoon. It was pretty hot here and we were sweating bullets trying to figure out what we should do next.

We looked at the map and realized that Mesa Verde was still very far away, we so headed east where we knew of a State Park that we could camp at. The road getting to the park was cool, it went up and down like a rollercoaster and had some great scenery. Confusion set in when we passed an entrance to a camp site, the road leading there was a beat up dirt road. We stopped down the road at a gas station to get more info. Then we fund out that wasn’t the park I saw on the map, the other park was further down and the road to it was paved. Paved was good, gravel/dirt was bad on a loaded up ST bike when you can’t even flat foot, we continued.

We arrived at the Navajo Dam and then Lake Navajo Sate Park. Navajo Lake is New Mexico’s second largest lake. The entrance booth was closed already since it was after 6PM so we continued in to the camping area where we could self check in. The guy at the gas station told us the camp site was full this morning, but we were hoping some people left already since the three day holiday weekend was over. As we headed to the park, we saw a lot of cars coming form the park heading the opposite direction. When we got to the camp site more then half of the camp sites were empty. We rode around the steep and narrow but paved roads and found a camp site with some grass to set up our tents on. Not all sites were good for tents, most looked like RV sites and there were many RV’s still here. Our site was a RV site too but, we parked our bikes in the spot where the RV would park. The price was $14 for the camp site, we put the money in to the self-pay envelope and dropped it in to the box.

As the sun started setting we started to set up our tents. There was no store at the park so for dinner I made some peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. I’ve learned from starving on previous trips and I was caring this stuff with me just in case we got hungry and couldn’t find any food. We also had some trail mix for dessert. We attempted to make a fire but since there was a big rain two days ago we couldn’t get the wood lit. Our neighbors came over with some lighter fluid after they noticed that we couldn’t light one just with matches.

It was a delightful night for camping. The air was cool but not cold and the sky was clear. The moon was almost full tonight and there were so many starts in the sky. Our camp site was pretty close to the bathrooms, so we didn’t have to walk too far. At around 10PM we called it a night and zipped ourselves in to our tents. My spot was a bit slopped and every time I turned to the other side I’d slide down, my sleeping pad, pillow and sleeping bag were made out of slippery type materials which didn’t help the situation. This was my first time camping on a motorcycle trip, so all my gear was new, just tested out for a few nights in my back yard a week before this trip.

 

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