Trip to Texas and New Mexico

[Robin]

Texas, New Mexico trip
March 26th-April 2nd, 2008

Well, I retired and March 24th was my last day. My wife had decided we needed to take a little retirement ride, so she and a girlfriend (Genia) plotted a trip. We took off on the morning of March 26th and headed south. We rode without stopping except for gas, until we hit Norman Oklahoma. We stopped in there at Good Ol’ J.R.’s BBQ restaurant and had some bbq. For you that don’t watch rasslin, J.R. is an announcer for the WWE. GOOD food!!
We motored on thru Oklahoma into Texas and ended up at Doc’s Hog Clinic. We hung out there with Doc for a while, then headed for Wichita Falls, Texas, where we hooked up with some friends, Genia and Linden from Tribune Kansas. We spent the night there, then the next morning we headed for Alpine Texas. It got hotter, it was in the upper 80’s when we got there. We stayed at an old (100yrs) hotel called the Holland Hotel. It was really cool and had great food and all. The only problem was the main railroad lines were about 75 yards from our room windows!! We wondered why there were packages of earplugs in the room, but it worked.
The next morning we headed out to Fort Davis and looked around.
Heres Glenda standing in front of the plant they make tequila out of, don’t remember the name of it.
It was pretty interesting seeing this place. We all grew up watching movies and reading about Indian wars and raids and stuff, well, this is where that stuff happened. Lot of history here.
After that we went into town and ate some great Mexican food before heading back to Alpine.
On Saturday, we headed south towards the border. We got into Terlingua, gassed up and from there rode into the Big Bend National Forest. We had no idea Texas was as mountainous as it was. We got to the Rio Grande River and gazed at Mexico on the other shore. Only thing we saw was a white goat climbing down the slope with a bell around its neck. I had always thought of the Rio Grande being a huge river. Here’s a picture of Glenda standing beside the river.
And it was hot, in the high 90’s. After that we headed out of the National Park and decided to ride the river road that runs along the Rio Grande going west. This was an AWESOME road and we stayed on it to Presidio.
Interestingly, everywhere we went, people told us to be careful in Presidio and don’t wander around alone due to the drug business. Then it started getting late, we were hot and tired and made our way back to Alpine.
On Sunday, our friends headed back to Kansas, they farm and had to get back. We took some scenic roads thru the country side and ended up in El Paso. We stopped at Barnetts HD and had some free cheeseburgers, and looked around a bit. They only had 600 Harleys to choose from, not just new bikes either, but they had Pans and old shovels for sale as well.
From El Paso, we went to Las Cruces and then headed North to Los Lunas and that’s when it got ugly. All the way we had strong winds with heavy gusts out of the west all the way to Los Lunas. The news at the motel said it was 30 mph winds with 40 mph gusts. I know it kicked our butts! Especially with the sand and dirt in the air as well.
We did stop in Madrid, New Mexico where the movie Wild Hogs was filmed. Only thing there from the film was Maggies Diner, and it wasn’t a real diner, it was just a set.
We decided to motor on to Raton New Mexico and got there with no problems. We checked the weather and they said it was sposed to be 45 degrees in the am then warm up to 60 around noon. Guess what? It was a solid 25 degrees when we headed out. And it stayed cold all day. After about 3 hours, the temps jumped clear up to 40. By the way, if your ever on 56/412 between Springer New Mexico and Clayton New Mexico, there is an old building at a townsite called Gladstone. It has one old gas pump in the front, and if you go in, its an old time café. It only has one table with seating for four. Nice lady runs it, she made us some hot chocolate as we were cold.
We rode thru Greensburg and saw all the destruction from the tornado last summer, it was horrible. What struck me was that all the trees looked like they had been electrocuted. We didn’t get any pictures, it was getting dark and we were cold, tired and hungry. We finally motored into Pratt Kansas about 9pm, but couldn’t find a motel room, all the motels were full of construction workers working in Greensburg. We finally lucked out and found one room that we took.
The next morning we woke up to 40 degree weather, loaded up and rode the rest of the way back home.
All in all, it was a great trip, and we saw some great scenery. Oh, we did see roadrunners, one sick deer, HERDS of antelope and a herd of eight javalina walk across the road in front of us. We rode 2965 miles on this trip, and our Harleys performed flawlessly.

Robin and Glenda

[bucky]

Sounds like you had a good trip. Where you going this year?
Bucky

[Robin]

In May, we are going to Southern Utah somewhere. My wife is a member of "The Rumble Sisters," an internet group of women riders. The west part of the group has a yearly ride and this year it is gonna be in southern Utah, place to be named later. They do allow husbands and boyfriends to attend.lol. We have gone the last 2 years, and it was a lot of fun. These women know how to have a good time!! And they are riders!! They come from all over the western U.S. to attend. One lady (63 yrs), rode 1800 miles in 2 days to get there.
Other than that, I don't know. We prolly will ride to Branson at least once as my parents live there.

Robin