Flagstaff to Albuquerque
Left Flagstaff at 7, into the cold air, watching the sun struggle above the snowy mountains. The temperature is in the 40’s but promises to get better as I drop a bit in altitude. Fierce cross winds keep me steering to the right, only to be blocked for a moment by a hill and then it’s left pressure until the winds return in a few hundred yards.
As the sun gets high enough to not be right in my eyes, the mountains start to give way to high plains with the endless low sagebrush and tan prairie grasses. Only hardy animals, both two and four legged, can survive up here. Fortunately for me, since I’m not that tough anymore, if ever I was, I’m only passing through on my rig, humming along at 60 mph. The cowboys and cowgirls who lived here a hundred or so years ago would not have imagined this pace, nor this contraption that allows it. While some folks wax nostalgic for those “simpler” times, I’ll stick with the decades that include these machines.
The warmth that comes with the drop in altitude “down” to 5,000 or so feet, brings with it even more crosswind, making steering a full-time occupation. This rig tracks wonderfully, usually requiring only modest input in a straight line, but the wind unsettles it a bit. Not just this one, however, I see tractor-trailers wobbling and correcting as well. An old song, “Little Deuce Coupe” comes to mind, “….I get pushed out of shape and it’s hard to steer…”. I’m not a surfer dude or a hot-rodder, but the sentiment is the same. Not faulting the rig or its setup, just accepting that in these contests, Mother Nature always has the better hand.
Arizona disappears behind me and New Mexico presents itself for inspection. I explored a lot of this state, and a fair bit of Arizona back in 1984 when I lived here for 11 weeks while working for a law firm in Albuquerque. I have fond memories of weekend excursions on the old green bike, camping in the hills and just wandering around to see what I could see. Surely nothing will have changed much in a mere 31 years ?
Lunchtime finds me near Gallup, so I cruise in and drive the main street which is also Old 66. There I find Glenns Bakery which provides me with a green chile breakfast burrito for lunch and wonderful apple stick pastries and an almond-paste filled bear claw for dessert. I take more apple sticks for tomorrow’s pre-breakfast snack.
The highway crests a rise and there is Albuquerque spread out below, looking to my eyes as if she may have put on some girth in the years since I saw her last. Not criticizing, mind you, I have too. I was young then, 35, and had no qualms about exploring all of this area in the Southwest without any navigation tools other than a paper map. It was the days before all the technical bike gear we have now, so I rode in jeans and a t-shirt, a thin leather jacket (the same one I’d had since I was 18) and boots and a helmet. I had a rain suit, but often in the parched summer air, I just let myself get wet, knowing that I’d be dry again in minutes. Now in the age of ATGATT, I’m layered up, much safer but not as “free”. I camped everywhere then, but now I need a bed and a shower.
I select a Motel 6, which offers a cheap room to AARP members (something else I couldn’t have imagined considering in 1984). By chance, since I don’t really recognize much here now, the motel is within blocks of my old apartment and the street names begin to come back to me. The BMW dealer is about 4 miles away (not the same one that was here back then) and I plan to see them tomorrow.