Bernalillo

Well, I didn't miss the rain. It was terrible! I hit three significant waves of storm fronts yesterday afternoon: one north of Abilene, one east of Lubbock, and one north of Lubbock on my way to Amarillo.

The first one hit hard, so I slowed down to only 55-60 with my hazards on and promptly got blown across my grooved pavement lane by a semi going 80 mph. I hydroplaned, lost the rear tire traction, and felt the front begin to big-time wobble. I rolled off and pushed hard with both arms to keep the front wheel straight. I don't know what I did with the clutch, but the rear tire smoothly reconnected after what seemed like a very long time and I stayed upright. I really thought I was going down. That one was very scary. The second one was just some fat raindrops and road spray, but the last one was so heavy that by 19:30 it was pitch dark, so I stopped at a hotel in Plainview, TX, for the night.

I didn't go straight from Abilene to Amarillo because I was collecting four more stops on the Motorcycle Grand Tour of Texas: a giant arrow, a museum, a motorcycle gear store, and veterans memorial 😁.

The cotton is beginning to bloom now. Seeing the solid white fields just before they're harvested is quite interesting. And after the harvest there will be drifts of cotton like snow on the sides of the road where it has blown out of the trucks. If you've never seen it, add Lubbock, Texas, to your list. I believe the harvest is usually in September/October.

I left the hotel right at 06:00 this morning and it stayed dark until 07:30 because of the cloud cover. I only had one deer startle across the road, and it was close enough to engage the ABS. A beautiful and big 6- or possibly 8-point whitetail buck. Wow.

After my fifth and final photo stop for MCGTTX, I hit the road for a straight shot to Durango. I'm stopped for lunch just outside of Albuquerque now. Perfectly dry and cool day so far. Yay!

So long [for now], and thanks for all the fish! ✌️

Day 150 mileage: 625.0 (total 38570.4)Les mer