We left Las Cruces early Saturday morning with a destination of Carlsbad Caverns. The trip from Las Cruces to El Paso was uneventful, and it felt good to open up the motorcycles after puttering a total of 48 miles in a week.
Leaving El Paso I had the urge to fill up the gas tanks again before we headed east. The desert ahead looked awful big. There was a hot dog stand at the gas station. Nope, it was a taco stand. Taco plus beans and rice for $3.50... We opted to go inside the gas station for a cool drink... The temperature outside was now 105F. With 150 miles to Carlsbad we had four bottles of water plus insulated nalgene bottles for about two quarts of water each. The first town, Cornudas, was about 70 miles away for a first water and gas stop.The road was straight as an arrow for boring but fast riding. We arrived at Cornudas in about an hour. There was one boarded up souvenir shop... Dell City junction was only 32 more miles.. What did we find? One house.
It was really, really hot. When I raised the visor on my helmet for some fresh air it was like a furnace blast on my face!!! The lid came back down as fast as it went up...After Dell City we went through some salt flats, but not salty enough to kill all the vegetation, and then the road went up into the Guadeloupe mountains, which resulted in the temperature dropping a few degrees... Guadelupe Peak is really beautiful.. Worth the trip.
It was back down the other side, the temperature back up, and we crossed back into New Mexico, but the lone town there was again a couple of abandoned houses. The speed limit on this two lane road is 70mph.. This road is the shortest road to Carlsbad and Hobbs, NM so there are lots of trucks using this road too. When you cross an 18-wheeler going the other way, the motorcycle feels like it is getting hit with a hammer. It is a real shock.. The closing speed is 150mph!!
We got into Carlsbad, the whole town was full of tourists, and the motels were full..and it was 107F. We finally found a motel called "The Stagecoach", in a good location right downtown and only $60 and NOT recommended. We got out of our sweaty gear and decided to wear shorts and sneakers to dinner, in spite of our rule: All the Gear, All the Time. It was hotter riding in shorts than with our mesh pants!! Our legs felt like they were in a blast furnace at 30mph..
We found a great BBQ place, and over dinner decided that since Sunday was going to be a hot day like Saturday, we would spend the day at the cave, and forget traveling until Monday...
Carlsbad Caverns is just incredible. The ride up to the cavern is just beautiful and the cavern is surreal. We spent 4 hours taking the walking tour into the main entrance. We made sure we saw every nook and cranny, and confirm that each one was at the advertised 56 degrees.....
At the end, around 3pm, we listened to a geology talk, and it was time to ride back down to Carlsbad. We stopped at every roadside "point of interest" on the way out of the park, among other things we saw some Apache cave shelters less than 1/8 mile off the road, while everyone else zoomed by.
Today our plan was to get as close to Fort Worth as possible. We got up early and left for Hobbs, NM, 70 miles away, for breakfast. We had breakfast at Casey's Restaurant, a local place on Main Street. (Actually Broadway).. We just asked a guy on the sidewalk, and he said "I just had breakfast there". Really, its nothing special, just a small diner open for breakfast and lunch, but we felt like we had been going there since forever in about five minutes. After that it was due east on route 180 in Texas, some more two lane, 75mph+ straight road driving, with the temperature climbing up into the 100's.
We saw the longest freight train we have ever seen. The road made an "S" turn to go on a bridge over the railroad tracks, and the train extended in both directions as far as we could see!!
After 120 miles we pulled into Gail, TX for gas, only to discover that Gail TX does not have a gas station. A kindly gentleman at the Post Office offered to get us some gas from his house. We found out that Snyder, just 35 miles away had "lots of gas stations", so we thanked him for his Texas hospitality and rode to Snyder.
We also went by two large wind farms.. Neat..
Right now we are in Breckenridge TX, about 100 miles outside fort Worth, at one of the three motels in town. We will have gone almost 2/3 the way across Texas and not spent one minute on an interstate highway.... As the weatherman said, it was cooler today, only got up to 105....
Looking back to New Mexico, I am going to miss their bridges, underpasses, and watertowers.. It is so nice viewing works of art. There is an underpass in Las Cruces that is just beautiful, almost a sculpture in its own right...
Harris and Jeannine
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