Day: 38
Date: 09/05
City: Dumas, Texas
Miles ridden: 164
Cumulative miles: 2998

As per yesterday we changed our plan slightly and we’ll spend the morning in the Route 66 museum. There were some old restored cars or in some cases only parts of them:

Sigrid couldn’t resist sliding down the fire pole 🙂

And a nice rebuild of a shop fronts as seen in earlier times on Route 66.

Outside was the old train station from Elk City and some additional displays showing how people lived and worked in the earlier days.  Of course the Diddles had a look as well.

There was also a short movie about the history of transport methods in the USA and Route 66. It was a 15 minutes film clip. They didn’t serve any popcorn or drinks during the movie,so Val nearly fell asleep and she went out into the sun.

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A picture in front of the museum (can you find the Diddles)?

This time we stopped early enough to take a picture of the State sign. Up to now we always realized it too late when we passed a state border and in most places there was no space to easily pull up with 4 bikes. Well, in Texas everything’s just a bit bigger, even the side lane on the highway.

We stopped early in the afternoon and filled our bikes up at a petrol station in Dumas. We started to talk with the guy at the petrol station about our bikes, our trip and our visit to the Route 66 Museum. He ask us if we would like to have a look at an old restored Ford that was in for maintenance in his garage. We enthusiastically said yes and so he showed us the beautiful restored Ford.

He mentioned that he was drag racing and he couldn’t resist to show us his baby. Wow! Not much room for a pillion and it’s got a parachute in the back!

Stopping a bit earlier, we had a look at hotels close by and selected a very basic one. We had it tough today 😉

 

Day: 39
Date: 10/05
City: Eagle Nest, New Mexico
Miles ridden: 228
Cumulative miles: 3226

Today we started a bit later, since we had to call Garmin to let them know that the new device played up again and Sigrid had to send an email to Charline and John (the couple that runs the IronHorse campground) so they could send the hat to the Flagstaff post office. It was very windy during the first bit of the trip, and Sigrid liked to keep the speed around 60mph. After 20 miles or so, Wombat got in front and increased that to around 70mph. The road was 2 lanes and Sigrid was happy to increase her speed to 70mph as well. So we kept it up for the rest of the day. The landscape was a bit monotoneous, but after 2 hours of riding we came to the beginning of the Rocky Mountain. The view was fantastic.

We travelled to Eagle Nest, which is a township at high altitude on a lake. The township is part of a scenic road (80 miles) that is called the Enchanted Circle. When we arrived we found accommodation (EconoLodge) with a view over the lake and the mountain. The scenery and the weather reminded me a lot of Austria.

So we walked to the centre of the town to get something to eat. On the way we found a wooden sculpture representing 2 bears. At our hotel we found proof that bears are in the area.

The season in this area hasn’t started jet, so most of the shops and all restaurants were still closed.

All of them? No, not all. A Pizzeria in a small township up in the hills was open.

(a small nod to all of you folks who’ve read Asterix & Obelix 😉 ).

The lady who runs the shop was wearing an oxygen mask, so we were a bit concerned about the OHS, oxygen bottle plus hot pizza oven. She told us that it might take 30 minutes or so. We went through the town and found an original Saloon that, surprisingly,  was open.  So that was the place of choice when waiting for Pizza to be finished.

The entry looked great:

And so did the entire area

Since we enjoyed the atmospere (and the beer) so much, we ask the bar tender if we could have the Pizza in his shop, and he was happy with that.

After the meal Wombat and I had a game of ‘Shuffle Board’, which was explainded to us by a local. Well, after a good start, Wombat thrashed me.

 

Day: 40
Date: 11/05
City: Mancos, Colorado
Miles ridden: 295
Cumulative miles: 3521

It was cold in the morning, so we delayed the start a bit and Sigrid and I put our heated vests on. We started to ride the enchanted drive, the first bit was nice scenery but the view around Taos was not as exciting any more. After Taos, we were passing a bridge and when we came closer we noticed that there was a huge canyon.

We found out that we just crossed the Rio Grande.

 

After taking some pictures we started to head towards some ominous black clouds. It was not too bad, we had to put our rain gear on and the rain was not too heavy. Coming out of the plains, we started to climbed over a pass that was 10,500 feet (3048m), and there was still snow on the side. Since we all got a bit cold, we decided to stop and to put our heated liners and gloves on. It was toasty warm. Sigrid couldn’t resist and threw some snow at us. We had a short look at hotels from a McDonalds and we found a nice hotel that was not too expensive. The motel was nice and the restaurant was just on the side, so we didn’t have to drive for dinner.