Scouting New Mexico

This year is running past us with the speed of WFO throttle position. It's the tenth anniversary of our motorcycle club. We are closely approaching 2500 members throughout the orange planet. The idea is to celebrate this decade of comradery, adventure, and the spiritual joy of giving of ourselves by riding our asses off, hosting and attending as many club rallies as we possibly can.

When Steve Johnson the founder of The Chaingang asked me for the fifth time in so many weeks, "When are you going to set some dates for your rally this spring?", it stumped me momentarily.

Procrastination is a fault that is in the top three on one of my file folder filled with lists of very bad habits. My not so famous non-commital response was simple. "I dunno, when do you want to go and take a look at the place?"

To which The Prof said, "Let's go this weekend if the weathers good".

So we did.

At first it was just going to be a dynamic duo, Steve and I. When Thumper returned home from his overseas post in Brazil for a couple of weeks, we both knew that he needed to go riding. So we voluteered him to drive his truck and haul our efsicfiddys out to Truth or Consequences.

Los Tres Amigos Locos head into the Wild Wild West for a short recon into the arrid regions of The Land Of Enchantment.

We had plenty of power and averaged about 14 mpg with the Cummins Turbo Diesel. Motos locked down, time to burn assphalt

For those of you who have never ridden in or driven one of these huge duellies I have to let you know that it is a miracle of modern engineering. With a little weight (like a ton, including bikes, trailer and gear) that silver bullet sails down the highway like a big ol' jet airliner

Thanks again to our pal Thumper for haulin our asses out there and back!!

Thumper checks the straps on Steve's 1997 Classic "The Black Cat" with over 117,000 miles on the odometer

We got underway late for the long haul out I-10. From San Antonio its just over 660 miles. As we left the skies were gray with temperatures hovering in the 50's, with a light mist falling. If the other travellers were feeling the squirmy guts like me they did not get any sleep the night before either. Looking forward to seeing new territory we hit the trail.

Our founding father made up a batch of his special brownies to help shorten the long haul, which made it more of a trip than a journey

For the first couple of hours I kept promising clear skies, and at about the 300 mile mark into the voyage the cloud cover showed signs of breaking

The promise of a beautiful sunset help to lift our mood

At days ends we rolled along at 82 mph into another time zone

Stopping only for fuel and to stretch our limbs helped us to make good time. Better yet in Fort Stockton I retrieved a message from TTNB1629 who words told me of a fine fellow by the moniker of Jet Gorilla who had offered a free place to stay and cold beer at the Garage Mahal in El Paso, Texas. Chris is a pilot and he was in the middle of a trip with a one night stop over. After getting some good directions, the concensus was to stop for a couple of beers and head on to our hotel so that we could get out riding first thing in the morning.

Mr. Gorilla who was looking somewhat disheveled, welcomed us heartily with cold man sodas. Even though he had been up all night with his flyboys burning the midnight jetfuel until the wee hours of that same morning his hosting skills were impecable. Being a knowledgable and very worldly sort with much offroading experience, Chris was able to fuel our excitement with advice on the terrain in store and some places to ride.

We look forward to seeing you at the rally Jet G! I want to see just how you make Bill Mallin eat purple enchanted desert dust.

I finished the short 120 mile span from the compound over into New Mexico to the Charles Motel and Spa. We were instructed by the receptionist and by a sign on the office door to ring the night bell and wait five minutes for a response. After 10 minutes had passed I could see my companeros were getting just a bit ancy. Frankly I was boiling mad, as I had made the reservations and spoken to the lady just hours before arrival. The night bell is one of those Radio Shack intercoms and has a talk button, so I gave that a try and got a response. In just a couple of minutes a long haired, bearded fellow came down from above the office and we got the room key.

Even though it was past 1 a.m. the promise of what dawn would bring kept me awake for some time.

Day one ends with anticipation of waking up in a new state, a new town, and to a new adventure.