Learning Curve

"To a crazy ship all winds are contrary." - George Herbert

Once again, I am behind on the blog, due to a variety of circumstances. There is much to catch up on, and most of it is pretty interesting, so hang in there. I will try to be entertaining!

Admittedly I do not know its original context, but the quote above perfectly sums up what I have learned in these past days. But I'll get back to that later. Let's start where we last were, in San Angelo Texas, anticipating big wind.

My trusty steed and I fought that wind, and the wind won. Expecting gusts of about 35 miles an hour, I broke camp in the dark to avoid the highest winds. The morning started out beautiful, but just over an hour into the trip the weather began to worsen. The landscape evolved into long, flat expanses of scrub, framed by low-slung plateaus. Perfect for winds to howl across.

The multitude of white, swirling turbines indicated just how blustery this area is inclined to be, and eventually I slowed to 40 miles an hour to avoid being blown off the road. Those bright turbines framed against the stark landscape might have appeared beautiful from a car, perhaps like oversized daisies spinning in the wind. But to me, on my bike, they appeared as windmills of doom, and I'm afraid that's how they'll always remain.

Finally, I arrived in Big Spring, tired from steering my bike against what had become 55 mph winds. By that time, the gusts had picked up seemingly every particle of red dust in Big Spring and suspended it in the air, so that, descending into town, it appeared the valley was thick with wildfire.

It was when I was accelerating through a dust-filled intersection that a big, bad gust wooshed down, picked up my bike and me, and carried us over a concrete median. I was in the process of steering the bike into a parking lot on the other side of the road when another gust knocked us over. Worrisome people and parents, do not freak out! A friendly scooter rider helped me pick up the bike, which has been doing fine. (Yes, I just knocked on wood.) Me, save for a small bruise, I'm no worse for the tumble. I did lose a treasured leather glove in the spill, and so I am now feeling somewhat like Cinderella minus a slipper.

After the spill, and with winds increasing, I did not consider continuing. I found a functional Motel 6 that smelled like stale armpits and prepared to make the best of the day I was about to spend in Big Spring.

" So, what is there to do in Big Spring?" I optimistically asked the girl behind the counter.

"Well," she replied, "There's really not anything to do in Big Spring."

"We're just getting around to fixing it up now,"said her boyfriend, who was working on a broken TV.

Just the kind of thing I might have said to a guest who visited my kitchen after I hadn't done the dishes in a couple days, and wasn't really planning on getting around to them any time soon, either. I asked if there had been a devastating fire, or perhaps a storm.

"No, its just gotten kind of run down over the years."

Big Spring, on which I could now write an extensive entry for any travel book interested, is an old hub town for the Texas and Pacific Railway. The train still runs through, but obviously not with the lustre it once had. It now feels like an oversized ghost town, with a massive, old hotel standing empty, amid dozens of other empty storefronts. Apparently some people are trying to restore what could be a picturesque downtown, but it seems the corrupt powers-that-be do not have their eye more on casinos and resorts:









I spent the afternoon visiting the Big Spring Heritage Museum, which was home to massive collections of old dolls and phonographs, as well as the world's longest set of Texas Longhorns.
I also found a new hero: Patricia McCormick. In the 1950's, while in college for art, she crossed over the border to Mexico and became the first female bullfighter. And she was GOOD. She fought for about ten years, survived several gorings, and now lives quietly as an artist Del Rio, Texas.

The day also included a stop to Big John's barbeque joint, for which I had high hopes, given my positive history with anything of that name. The food was just decent, but the atmosphere was good:


The day ended with a long hike to the edge of town, where I visited the Big Spring for which the town was named. Apparently an old Comanche warpath watering hole, it is now lined with big homes and a state highway, and had not retained much of its original charm. From there, I hiked up the mountain, or plateau, at the edge of town, where Big Springs State Park was located. Roadrunners crossed my path, looking even crazier than they do in the cartoons. From the top of the mountain, I looked at everywhere I'd been that day, and the long road I'd been blown down. In the distance, windmills of doom were spinning, spinning.

By this point, I'd been subject to enough wind, sun and cold that I was beginning to look a little like Clint Eastwood, or at least I'd like to think so. Here is my best steely-eyed glare:










The next day dawned beautiful; perfect. The wind was at my back all through a chilly ride into Roswell, New Mexico. I diner-hopped all morning to stay warm, and was full of caffeine by the time I arrived in the alien capitol of the world. I spent the afternoon planning the next few days of my trip and visiting the UFO Museum and Research Center.



It was a very serious museum, full of documents like newspaper clippings, first person accounts of the UFO crashes, and any government documents the Center could obtain. There was a conspicuous lack of physical evidence, yet by the end of the tour I found myself with a slithgly uneasy feeling, buying into some of the "Trust no one" vibe that was almost palpable in the place.



Camped that night outside of town at Bottomless Lakes State Park. It consists of a chain of large, deep springs on the edge of the Chihuahan desert. Mesas lined the horizon, and neat critters roamed the scrub. Apparently, there is a rare Pecos Sunflower growing there, but it was not blooming. Unfortunately, my camera gave out in Roswell (finally giving in to the soaking it received on the first day of the trip), so I have no pictures of this beautiful park or the next day's travels. I pitched my tent near the edge of the lake in a cluster of trees, where it weathered a windy, rainy night. The campground had a festive atmosphere, full of mostly latino families camping there for Easter Weekend. Everyone is friendly and curious when they see I am riding a motorcycle across the country, and so I met lots of interesting people before drawing some pictures of the lake and going to bed.



Now we are up to yesterday, Saturday, which proved eventful. As most eventful days do, it started out inconspicuously enough. Weather was warm and sunny heading back into Roswell, but forecasts called for things to turn colder and rainier as I headed north, toward Albuquerque. The idea was to go about as far as Bluewater Lake State Park, lining me up nicely to cross the Navajo Reservation the next day. I started out on 280 North from Roswell, which was the loneliest stretch of highway I've ridden yet. 95 miles without a gas station, a solitary town, a house, or hardly even a cow. 95 miles of grass, and fences, some strange shrub, and clouds. The clouds fell in long, dark lines across the highway, and in between them lay stretches of golden sunshine where I could anticipate warmth. Such a vast, empty place lends itself to meditation; my mind rolled over the landscape with the bike.


280 finally reached Vaughan, a town where even the little kids were wearing cowboy chaps. I gassed up, and looked with some trepidation at the sunless stretch of dark sky ahead. A glance at the map revealed that the town of Clines Corner was about 50 miles ahead, at the intersection of I-40, and would surely provide shelter if needed.

About 15 miles out of Vaughan, the rain started. Ten miles after that, it got harder to see, and I realized the rain had turned to snow. Snow that fell heavier the farther I drove, until the desert all around me was white with it. At this point, wiping the snow from my visor, I began to laugh.

Over the past few days, I'd felt a growing sense of frustration with the weather. I felt I'd been wasting several hours a day, planning my routes to correspond with the elements, which ended up noncompliant anyway. 'Shouldn't I be sightseeing, relaxing, drinking in the countryside and not freaking out about logistics?' I found myself thinking bitterly. And this is where we return to the Herbert quote: "To a crazy ship all winds are contrary."

Riding through the snowstorm, I realized that I was a crazy ship. I had embarked on a trip to cover this great, wide country on a little, two wheeled vehicle, and somehow I'd been expecting it to be a pleasure trip. Sight seeing, friendly encounters, golden highways and open skies were all that I could envision awaiting me. I was indeed a crazy ship to forget that weather existed, or to think that it would somehow not affect me as I traveled at sixty miles an hour in the open air.

In truth, one is much more subject to the weather on a motorcycle than on foot, where the wind and the cold and even motion are at a human, graspable level. Once one is elevated on a bike, things change.

So I came to realize, as I drove carefully and with great determination for Clines Corner, that this was not a joy ride I was on, but more an expedition. And with this thought everything fell into perspective. It was okay to be uncomfortable, and sometimes a little scared. That is what one feels on an expedition, because one is pushing one's limits in the hope of achieving something greater. Suddenly, it made sense to spend hours planning for routes and weather: that is what one does on an expedition. Suddenly, the weather became ab essential element; the pivot on which the whole voyage turned.

Winds are no more contrary than a canyon or a mountain or a wall, it is just when we run into them, expecting them to change or bend to accomodate our plans, that they seem so.

And in this frame of mind, I arrived in Clines Corner. The snow was slushing on the road, and boy was I ready to be off the highway. Clines Corner was just that - a four way intersection with a Travel Center gas station in the corner. No hotel in sight. I walked in, unconsciously slewing accumulated slush onto the floor, and learned that the nearest motel was 22 miles down the interstate.

Crap.

The weather did not look like it was remotely near improving. In fact, it might continue through the night. The thought of riding through that snow down the interstate was the least appealing thing imaginable. I must have looked a little concerned, because two kind waitresses sat me down and gave me a cup of coffee while they helped me think over my situation. Possibilities ran through my mind... get a tow into town?It looked like they were going to close down the station if the weather kept up, but maybe they'd let me sleep on a booth inside? I had an unhappy vision of my tent, pitched behind the gas station, several inches deep in snow. I came very close to getting a hitch from two grizzled truckers headed opposite the way I was going. Ultimately, though, they came off as a little too grizzled to feel safe, and going sixty miles out of my way seemed like a bad idea.

So finally, the snow let up. I took the window of opportunity, had a harrowing ride down the interstate, and wound up safe and warm in a Motel 8 in the town of Moriarty, about 40 miles east of Albuquerque.

I steeped for a long, long time in a bath, feeling a like a turkey defrosting, down to the bone.

I made a friend, a guy named Niles who was relocating from Virginia to Utah on his 500 cc motorcycle. We played a little harmonica and cigar box guitar (which he made himself), shared the philosophy we'd both been working over on our long bike rides, and hit up the local honky tonk, where people were two-stepping to a live band. I won my first game of poker. One of the best parts of traveling is meeting kindred spirits, and I certainly feel like I did that with Niles.

Now it is Sunday morning -- Easter! The weather looks like it will be better than yesterday but not perfect, so I'm going to let things warm up and then see how far I can get. In the spirit of my new expedition, I have closely watched the weather and analyzed every possible route. I am open to whatever the weather has in store, and I am ready for the open road!