Previously…..
This is day 2 of a 4 day trip from my home outside of Houston, tx to Colorado and back. Here are the links to the rest of the series. Day 1, Day 3, Day 4
Big Spring to the Panhandle
Ok fresh day fresh ride. I left my last 2 beers in the hotel fridge for the cleaning staff since they would be boiling hot by the time I hit my next hotel and wouldn’t get cold in time actually to drink them. Six-packs are kind of wasteful, and I resolve to do better on the rest of the trip.
In Lubbock, I swung by the Indian dealership there to see about a luggage Rack. The Lubbock dealership is a multi-brand Polaris Powersports place, but the folks are friendly and helpful. The parts guy ( sorry didn’t note his name) tells me they do NOT have the rack, BUT there is one in Colorado Springs. Too bad I probably won’t get to CS before they close, but handy info just the same.
West Texas is pretty country if you like wide open spaces and windmills. The trouble is that it honestly gets a little boring after a couple of hundred miles. I stopped a few times for hydration, to alleviate the boredom, and to take the damn helmet off. That thing was starting to be problematic.
Helmet problems and solutions
During my last solo adventure, I wound up having to make an emergency purchase of a full-face helmet at a Wal-Mart in Mississippi (Another story for another time). After wearing the cheapo helmet for a few hours, I found that a full face doesn’t have the annoying problems of a half helmet. Things like having the wind trying to pull your head to the side in a crosswind and otherwise just feeling like you have a parachute strapped to your head.
So when I got home from that trip, I went to my area, Cycle Gear, and shopped for a helmet. I wound up with a modular unit in a medium that seemed snug. I was assured that it takes 20 hours or so to break in the padding, and it should be fine. One of the big bonuses of a modular or full-face helmet is improved vision in the rain and at night. Since I was riding toward an area where I would be dodging storms, I was wearing my shiny new helmet.
I was starting to hate that thing. It wasn’t even for the reasons I thought I might hate it. Peripheral vision was good, no feeling of claustrophobia, ventilation was fair with the visor up. The problem was after an hour or so, my ears would start hurting in a steadily mounting way. It was to the point that I was playing those mental tricks on myself – “Two more exits, and I can stop to take this thing off for a minute.”
Finally, in Plainview, I stopped to get some food and hit up a Walmart to get a net or bungee cords to secure this thing OFF of my head. After waiting in line for 30 minutes for a self-checkout (they had ONE cashier), I strapped the torture helmet to my duffel and headed on my way. I was frustrated enough I decided that dinner could wait until I made Pueblo, CO – my goal for the night.
Amarillo and Onward!
By the time I hit Amarillo around 2 pm, it’s been over a hundred degrees for a few hours already, and I was getting hungry. So I did a quick search for a place to hide from the sun and get recharged. Oh, look, Hooters is not far out of the way. Hey, if you are hiding out from the sun and killing some time, it may as well be a scenic locale, right?
I tell you, sitting at a bar you can meet the most interesting people. In this case, it was a big fella who introduced himself with, “They call me A.K.”
A.K is an instrumentation expert for refineries and power plants, and such. As we chatted, he asked about riding in the infamous West Texas wind. I explained how I had learned to ride in the Corpus Christi area, so the wind was not a big problem.
This led to him telling me how he lived and worked in Corpus for a few years at Flint Hills. Small world, I know a guy that worked at Flint hills around that time – do you know Gene? Hell yes, he did! So we laughed and talked about bikes and boats and road trips for a bit before it was time for me to make the next leg. So, I headed north on US 87 out of Amarillo and left at Dumas, making a beeline for Texline, Tx.
Texline is about 200 yards from the Texas/New Mexico line and has about 500 people and a couple of gas stations. That made me happy. Previous trips taught me not to count on gas stops being as plentiful in New Mexico as I’m used to in Southeast Texas!
New Mexico!
My time in New Mexico was brief this trip as I cut the corner to Raton and Interstate 25. I saw the clouds piling up ahead of me just under an hour in, and the temperature had dropped from 101 in Texline to 85. That doesn’t sound like much, but let me say a drop of 15 degrees in 20 minutes will put a chill on you. I was prepared, so I stopped on the side of the road to pull on my leather jacket and rolled on, enjoying the cooler air.
Then the clouds started to get a little more menacing and started spitting rain at me. Now a brief shower after riding in the heat all day would not normally cause me to stop. It’s just a cool off right? This cloud bank looked like it wasn’t going to be a passing summer shower. So I stopped in Ratonto pull on the pants from my rain gear, thinking that my leather would handle my top half. I pulled on the torture helmet and headed off in the worsening rain to Raton Pass into Colorado.
Raton Pass and the flash flood
From Raton, NM over Raton Pass to Trinidad, CO, is only 25 miles or so, and the curves are pretty gentle in normal circumstances. Unfortunately, these weren’t normal circumstances. See, they had Interstate 25 under construction, so it was down to one lane each way separated by concrete dividers. Again, normally not a big deal, but the rain was getting steadily worse as we climbed. So with the construction causing the water to flow down the roadway rather than draining off, I felt like I was riding up a stream in the deepening darkness. On a road I had never been on in my life. Yay me.
Happily, I had a pickup truck behind me that wasn’t in a hurry and gave me my space, so I just slowed down to about 50 and crawled over the top. As I was pulling into Trinidad, the rain felt like it was getting worse, and visibility was really getting to be an issue. Luckily the torture helmet had Bluetooth, so I speed-dialed the Red-Haired Girl back at home.
She knows quite well how to be “Mission Control,” so the conversation was quick. “Hi Hon, I need you to check the weather for me. I’m on I-25, headed north into Trinidad, Colorado, and hitting rain. Am I going to punch thru or should I think about stopping?” She said to give her a minute, and she came right back with, ” Oh no, you need to stop. Radar has a big red storm just north of you. It looks like there’s a Days Inn coming up pretty soon. Call me when you are safe.”
As we hung up, I saw the sign for the Days Inn at the next exit, and I oh so carefully got off the highway and headed for safety…. Or so I thought.
A Rainy Night in Trinidad
I got a cold feeling in my gut as I turned up the hill to the Days Inn. It was one of those old motor lodge-style places where you could stand outside your room and look over the parking lot. A parking lot that was absolutely full! Lucky for me,, there was a spot under the driveway patio at the front door where I could park out of the way and out of the rain. I took off my helmet and went inside, hoping they had at least one room left.
When I got inside, two people were working the front desk. I smiled and asked if they had any vacancies. No, I didn’t have a reservation. As I feared, there were no rooms available. These nice folks pulled out a list of local hotels and showed me which ones had been calling THEM asking if they had any rooms. We then split the list and called the remaining hotels only to find that there were absolutely no vacant rooms in town for that Saturday night. Oh boy.
I ran through my options for the night in my head. On the positive side, I wasn’t really tired. The adrenaline of the situation had me firing on all cylinders. I had decent rain gear, so I probably could avoid getting completely drenched. On the negative side of the equation was the weather and road situation. Less than optimal, but those were the cards I had been dealt. Time to cowboy up!
The lady at the desk asked “What are you going to do?” I smiled at her and said “I’m going to go into your bar, have a a beer and a shot, then I’ll put my rain gear on and press on to Pueblo.” I’d like to think that sounded like something some action hero would say. The truth is it probably was a bit less heroic standing there dripping and looking grim.
Heroic or not, that was the plan, so I went into the next room where they had a bar and resteraunt attached. I took off my soggy jacket, ordered a beer and a shot, and pulled out my phone to check weather patterns. Maybe I could slip between the worst of the rain cells. Yean, not so much. It was a pretty solid mass of hard rain between me and Pueblo. At least the beer and whiskey was good.
I had just called my Red-Haired Girl to tell her what was going on, when the young guy from the front desk came hurrying into the bar. He looked excited, which I hoped was good news for me. It was!
“I pulled a few magic tricks and found a room!” he said.
“Where? Here?”
“Yes, but you need to sign in before someone grabs it!”
Needless to say I almost beat him to the front desk to slide that credit card! Heroics are to be carefully planned and strenuously avoided, as someone once said.
Room secured, and gear stowed away, I returned to the bar for a hot meal. I had perused the menu while having my consoling beer and had noticed they had a curry on the menu. Mmmm I hadn’t had a good curry in ages. I’ll cut to the chase and tell you that curry in the Days Inn in Trinidad Colorado was the best curry I have had yet! Perfectly seasoned, spicy but not unbearably hot, just well balanced.
So a couple of hours or so later, with a full tummy and a mild buzz, I tucked myself in for a good night’s sleep. Which, as I think about it, is kind of the long distance biker’s version of “… And he lived happily ever after”
Stay tuned!
This was only the second day! I’ll probably condense Sunday and Monday into one post, and should’ve that up in a day or so.
Thanks for reading!