Southwest Tour - Day 1
Day 1 - Dallas to Durango CO, 854 miles
In keeping with the tradition started last year, I decided to use the week long work meetings out in San Jose as a good excuse to jump on the bike and stretch the legs a little. As I was planning for this trip, my friends over at bmwsporttouring.com were kind enough to point out that their bi-annual Torrey event was the weekend before my meetings, and thus the seed was planted for conspiring to turn a week of work into two glorious bike trips. At least, that's the plan ... it's only Day 1 right now. :)
Today's trip was to get from Dallas to Durango as expeditiously as possible. Durango was chosen based on it's proximity to Torrey, the distance from home, the positive comments the town has gotten from friends, and my brief glance at the town as I passed through in 2004. Because of the remoteness of Torrey, I didn't want to try making the ~1300 mile trip in a single stint. My 2004 trip showed me what they meant by "open range", so the goal was to get as close enough to Torrey on the first day, so that I'd have an easy ride in on day 2. Along those lines, since it's an easy ride, it means I get to stop for more pictures.
Today started without the usual pre-ride picture that's becoming standard for these kinds of trips. Once I got the bike out of the garage and loaded up, it just wasn't located on the right part of the driveway to make the picture work. My original plan had my leaving at 7:00am, but I was hoping to push that forward and leave at 6:00am instead. 7:00am would be the time, and after a quick run to the bank and to fuel up, I was on the road by 7:15am.
The first stint of the ride was pretty straight forward ... US380 from Frisco over to Decatur, then US287 out to Amarillo. I stopped in Childress TX right around 11:00am for fuel and a quick sandwich. No pictures on the first leg as it's pretty routine ground for me.
From Childress I did start carrying the camera with me. I also noticed a larger number of Harleys out on the road, as we would continue to leap frog each other on gas stops and pass each other on the road. At one stop light, one of the Harley riders turns to me and asked "you wouldn't happen to be headed to the HOG rally, would you?". I thought it was great.
The next stop was Tucumcari NM. I'd been dry up until this point, but the rain was trying to spit a little so I put up the camera and actually broke out the heated gear (though didn't actually need to turn it on) as the temps dropped below 60. I hit Tucumcari around 1:45pm Mountain time. Just a quick gas and go.
My last stop was right around 5:00pm Mountain Time, right at the turn off from I-25 onto US550. The temps had come back up, so it was time to shed the warm gear, and go back to the more summer attire. I also used the stop to grab a little more food. I forgot to pull out the camera at this stop, and just a couple miles down the road I decided to pull over and get the camera back out. It would also be the one time I would miss Cass's phone call because I wasn't plugged in to hear it ring. The rain came back out on US550, and at one point it was looking like I was headed for a pretty nasty thunderstorm, with enough lightning that I would have needed to pull over and sit it out. Luckily, I managed to get out in front of the storm. I made the NM/CO border right at 8:00pm Mountain Time, and made it into Durango with 7676 miles showing on the odometer.
Pictures are available here: http://rocketcowboy.smugmug.com/gallery/2854525
In keeping with the tradition started last year, I decided to use the week long work meetings out in San Jose as a good excuse to jump on the bike and stretch the legs a little. As I was planning for this trip, my friends over at bmwsporttouring.com were kind enough to point out that their bi-annual Torrey event was the weekend before my meetings, and thus the seed was planted for conspiring to turn a week of work into two glorious bike trips. At least, that's the plan ... it's only Day 1 right now. :)
Today's trip was to get from Dallas to Durango as expeditiously as possible. Durango was chosen based on it's proximity to Torrey, the distance from home, the positive comments the town has gotten from friends, and my brief glance at the town as I passed through in 2004. Because of the remoteness of Torrey, I didn't want to try making the ~1300 mile trip in a single stint. My 2004 trip showed me what they meant by "open range", so the goal was to get as close enough to Torrey on the first day, so that I'd have an easy ride in on day 2. Along those lines, since it's an easy ride, it means I get to stop for more pictures.
Today started without the usual pre-ride picture that's becoming standard for these kinds of trips. Once I got the bike out of the garage and loaded up, it just wasn't located on the right part of the driveway to make the picture work. My original plan had my leaving at 7:00am, but I was hoping to push that forward and leave at 6:00am instead. 7:00am would be the time, and after a quick run to the bank and to fuel up, I was on the road by 7:15am.
The first stint of the ride was pretty straight forward ... US380 from Frisco over to Decatur, then US287 out to Amarillo. I stopped in Childress TX right around 11:00am for fuel and a quick sandwich. No pictures on the first leg as it's pretty routine ground for me.
From Childress I did start carrying the camera with me. I also noticed a larger number of Harleys out on the road, as we would continue to leap frog each other on gas stops and pass each other on the road. At one stop light, one of the Harley riders turns to me and asked "you wouldn't happen to be headed to the HOG rally, would you?". I thought it was great.
The next stop was Tucumcari NM. I'd been dry up until this point, but the rain was trying to spit a little so I put up the camera and actually broke out the heated gear (though didn't actually need to turn it on) as the temps dropped below 60. I hit Tucumcari around 1:45pm Mountain time. Just a quick gas and go.
My last stop was right around 5:00pm Mountain Time, right at the turn off from I-25 onto US550. The temps had come back up, so it was time to shed the warm gear, and go back to the more summer attire. I also used the stop to grab a little more food. I forgot to pull out the camera at this stop, and just a couple miles down the road I decided to pull over and get the camera back out. It would also be the one time I would miss Cass's phone call because I wasn't plugged in to hear it ring. The rain came back out on US550, and at one point it was looking like I was headed for a pretty nasty thunderstorm, with enough lightning that I would have needed to pull over and sit it out. Luckily, I managed to get out in front of the storm. I made the NM/CO border right at 8:00pm Mountain Time, and made it into Durango with 7676 miles showing on the odometer.
Pictures are available here: http://rocketcowboy.smugmug.com/gallery/2854525
posted by Charlie at
11:26 PM
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