TravellingStrom

Tuesday – Alamogordo, New Mexico

A long tiring day riding in the wind, but I met some fellow Vstrom riders and visited a Very Large Array telescope

I woke up sort of, considering I did not get much sleep. I have no idea why, but for some reason I woke up heaps of times during the night, so I was tired to start the day, not a good sign. It may have been the horns of the trains that was just across the way, but with ear plugs, I should not have been bothered, who knows?

But, places to see, people to meet etc, I had a sort of idea where I wanted to be today, and a general idea of which way to get there, but first I needed a map, so off to the visitors centre which I had passed yesterday a few times in my search for a bed 🙂

Although I have the large road atlas, I also like to have a paper map in front of me when I can get one, just because I like to dominate my GPS at times and go a different way if there is one 🙂 So I headed south and not far from town I saw a street sign saying “Uproot D Tree Road” , so I went back for a photo, where I saw the letter E scraped away, still amusing though, to me 🙂

Further on down the road I saw this sign, once again I went back for a photo and after studying it for a while, I figured it probably meant do not drink and drive.

As a sub note to the above, I saw a similar sign later on which had an additional sign underneath saying, do not drink and drive, that must have been for those drink drivers who were literate.

A pretty straight road, no traffic but quite windy and as I was at 7000ft it was a bit chilly, but bearable, picking a parking spot and one with a tree was a bit hard, but needed occasionally as I was determined not to get dehydrated today.

So, after an hour or so I headed east and of course found another no tree parking spot! You would think that heading south with the wind coming from my right(west) that when I head east I would get a tail wind, well, think again, for some weird reason I am still getting a side wind??? I have not seen another car by the way for the past hour, very enjoyable 🙂

Now, the reason I went east at this stage was because it was getting towards lunch time and there is a town on this road called Pie Town, well I have been hanging out for a meat pie for a long time, so I went there. When I got there I finally bumped into some fellow Vstrom riders who also wanted some pie.

Inside I did not have to be a sweetie 🙂

Now, I got ripped off here for two reasons, one they do not make meat pies! Bummer, they only do fruit pies, so instead I had a BLT with chips. Now, I am once again hit by the language barrier here. BLT means bacon, lettuce and tomato, which is what I got, but I also asked for onion, which I got, but a bit different, but the chips I got were not what I imagined. Check this out, and pay close attention to the size of the sandwich compared to the onion, which was on the side, not on the sandwich? There was only enough sandwich to use a quarter of the onion I was given!

Yep, ripped off, the sandwich was minute and for $6, I expected a bit more and of course I am thinking of what we call a steak sandwich and chips at home, which is hot chips, not chips from a packet. Anyway, I was unimpressed with the food, but my tiredness probably had something to do with my feelings at this time, so please forgive my bitchiness.

The company on the other hand was excellent, this is from left, Geoff, Evan and their father Don.

They had the two Vstroms and Geoff was riding Dons BMW, they had spent about 6 days or so getting together from various parts of the states, and were now riding west together, what a great idea 🙂 We spent some time chatting, a fair bit of time actually. They had some fruit pie as a dessert, I was not excited by the portion size, not the price, and as I was tired, sweet sugar stuff would have made me nod off.

After an hour or so I headed off, nice meeting you guys, safe travels 🙂 Across the road and up about 200 meters was another pie shop, called the Pie – o- neer, the original shop, with the reason behind the town’s name. This shop was closed, it was Tuesday so they open, Thursday til Monday and have mid week off.

Next off down the road a way was a radio astronomy place where they had built a Very Large Array telescope, so I went in and had a look around, it was quite interesting and it was free(always good). 🙂

After that I continued east and fuelled up at Soccorro, if you look back at the map, you will see me passing through a grey area after this, this is actually the White Sands Missile range, the testing place for the world’s first atomic bomb.

I went down the road for a look, but it was closed, I found out later it is open for two days of the year, April and October, so I dipped out, oh well, I had no hair left anyway 🙂

I was going downhill for a while and eventually got to Carrizozo where I saw these painted mules. I was actually thinking of a motel because I was tired, but they were very expensive here for some reason.

So, once again I battled the wind and headed south where eventually the plain brown desert turned a bit greener, then finally it was very green just outside of Alamogordo where I found a cheap motel.

Now, this motel was cheap, and with the fuel costs for the day I could still afford a nuked meal and some Aussie beer and stay within budget, so not a bad ending for the day I guess. Although, sitting in a motel drinking beer is a tad boring, bars are better for meeting people. There was only one argument during the evening, no guns though 🙂 As you can see from the milage today, I actually covered a bit of ground, although my intentions were to have been and done the White Sands monument by now, oh well, tomorrow is another day 🙂

Day – 379 miles and 610 km
Trip – 7,792 miles and 12,540 km

Cheers
TravellingStrom
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