Tour de Dixie - Texas (Part Three)

DDT (12)

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Sometimes ya just gotta go...

Winter Springs, FL - Occasionally...

Tour de Dixie - Texas (Part Three)

« on: April 14, 2016, 01:21:50 AM »

Tour de Dixie – Texas (Part Three)

We left Artesia bright and early one morning, Gerbings plugged in and cranked up, the sun just barely making its first peek over the horizon at our backs, and we rode off towards the high country… The ride up to Cloudcroft is a really nice ride, and it’s one I always look forward to. Scenic, twisty once you arrive in the mountains, light traffic, and a good surface for scooterizing! My partners all agreed this one was a keeper…

As we neared Cloudcroft, remnants of winter’s precip remained in quite an abundance… not a blanket of snow, but large patches, particularly under and around the trees in the thickening forest the higher we climbed. Temps continued to drop with each foot in elevation we gained, too, so my dual Gerbings controller was ‘maxed out’ by the time we reached our stopping point… a restaurant I just happened to have stopped at on previous occasions…

Nobody was really interested in eating a meal just yet, but coconut pie sounded like a downright good idea, nonetheless… in we went. Dang! Only one piece of that very special pastry left!!! Dennis and I shared that sole remaining coconut morsel, while JP had a slice of another variety of pie… Mitch passed on the whole idea.

A former Valk rider engaged us in conversation at this stop. This local no longer rode his because he had crashed it not too long before. He was determined to share his story with us the way all riders are sometimes, so we listened politely as he gave us the grisly details.

He was, of course, a nice guy, who like us had found himself caught up in the magic of riding our special brand of scooter, and he was re-living his past glories by passing time with us. We didn’t have much time to spare if we were to reach our day’s destination, but it would have been just wrong not to have allowed this fellow traveler to exalt for a brief time… you know, to kick some tires with kindred spirits…

It was downhill the rest of the ride on to Alamogordo… I was determined to have a full serving of my favorite pie, so we pulled into a Denny’s to sate my eclectic appetite just as we were entering Las Cruces … Not to be! Nope, they didn’t have any at all… I allowed a club sandwich to suffice instead… brunch, I suppose. The other members of this suspicious entourage also took this opportunity to intake some nourishment…

I had further exploited a whiz stop opportunity back in Alamogordo to top off ALI’s tank… having tested my pals’ good will so recently, it just seemed patently prudent! Anyway, I was then good to go for the haul to Silver City… or so I’d thought…

North of Las Cruces several miles there is a squiggly line on the map that purports to be a ‘bikers’ delight’ road over to Silver City… I had a vague recollection of having ridden that road before with Dragonrider 2 back in my Albuquerque phase a decade before… It lived up to its billing!

Just as we exited the super slab at the get-off for that road, a fuel opportunity at a campground presented itself, and I let caution overcome foolhardy but calculated risk taking… for a refreshing change. Good thing, too, as it turned out I most likely would not have made it all the way to the next fuel place had I not done so! My companions were also rather pleased with my call this time…

The wind had been freshening all day, so by the time we neared our target for the day, it was quite strong… to the point of becoming rather annoying. We checked into a motel room, decided against going out for dinner, and settled in… and waited for the pizza to be delivered. Not a bad way to go sometimes, actually, as I’m dead certain anyone reading this already knows!

An uneventful evening followed, then up at the crack of dawn and preparations for departure. That day we would ride US 180 up to Alpine, AZ, then on to Show Low, and eventually Payson for the evening.

This is a great route, and we all had a large time banking the plentiful curves, feeling the inclines and declines, altitude changes, temperature ups and downs that coincided with elevation ups and downs, all the while marveling at the varying scenery and spectacular vistas that came into view… and just luxuriating in the joy of being alive and there…

Experiencing these things, these essential components of a ‘life well lived’ as far as this humble rider is concerned, is the calling in life to which I’ve chosen to respond! I have no regrets and no apologies to offer. Even if I could, I would not go back and change anything in my life… To change anything, would be to change everything that came afterward, and I am most content with the way things have turned out. Nope, it’s been a wonderful life, in my view, and I’ll happily leave things just the way they are.

Our rooms in Payson turned out to be quite nice. By now I was feeling the effects of prolonged riding over an extended period much more each day, and I was in need of rest more than anything else. JP, mercifully, brought me a sandwich back from the dinner run the others had made, so I was able to just relax, nap, and lay about all evening… A happy event for these aging, tired ol’ bones!

By now, a more coherent plan was beginning to emerge. I had had a more or less general idea of what all I wanted to show the others, but before I could nail down anything specific, I needed to learn how we all traveled together, what kind of pace seemed to work best for us, and of course to factor in anything they might want to see. Then, a curveball was tossed at me…

Somebody mentioned it would be nice to see Big Bend National Park while out that way… I’d had an idea we might be able to work that in on the return leg, but it had been a low priority in my thinking, figuring to work in as much far away stuff as we comfortably could… Since all three of them expressed a desire to go there, I made some strategic calculations and did some necessary triage to my ‘ideal trip’ plan, and things really began to fall in place.

There is so much to see out there, that it is simply impossible to see nearly enough on one visit. The best one can do is go for as long as one can, see as much as one can, and resign oneself to having to return again and again… Ironically, one can spend a lifetime out yonder and never come close to seeing it all… We must grudgingly accept that we can only do what we can do… and be glad for that… To focus upon the glorious things that were experienced, and to not dwell upon what might have been…

DDT


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DirtyDan

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Kingman Arizona, from NJ