Albuquerque Trip Labor Day Weekend 2007
Just returned from Albuquerque, NM and remembered why I take the Hatch shortcut. On the way I actually missed my exit at Deming and thought that because I wasn’t in a hurry and that it was a nice day that I would take the long way… Mistake!! There is nothing really to see that was worth the extra (nearly) 100 miles.The return trip was good. Hatch was hosting their annual chili festival and apparently all the cops had to work the event so there were none left to enforce the speed limit and I guess the border patrol relaxed so that the event could be well attended by all. Needless to say I did not get stopped, ticketed or harassed on this trip.
The town was jumping for Hatch. The main of the two gas stations was standing room only at the pumps and the counter. Gas prices are better in Arizona and the worse prices are in places like Hatch that have little competition.
The 1999 GoldWing handled its business; it did all that I asked it to do as usual. The entire trip added about 1k miles to the odometer to bring me up to 66k, still breaking her in!
I carried a decent load, full sized backpack on the rear seat with three days of clothes, meds CPAP machine and other tidbits. In the trunk I had a soft pack ice chest that mostly had bottled water and ice and also had room for my digital camera. The soft pack ice chest is nice because it can be compressed and contoured to the available space and when empty it can be easily stored. In my saddlebags I had my laptop on one side and my leather and rain gear. Of course the cell phone and the MP3 player were up top with me.
My tank is worth about 160 miles but I don’t always stay at the prescribed speed to obtain it and in general I count on 140-150 and am trying to develop the habit of getting fuel before I’m sniffing fumes, but sniffing sure raises the excitement level on the trip.
Road conditions were great, I was able to keep the cruise on 80 most of the time with acceleration up to 95 on occasions, even the construction zones went by fast. Leaving Tucson on Friday; there were lots of clouds to hide under that provided shade and an appreciable cooling effect. After missing my Hatch exit and proceeding north on 25, passing through Truth Or Consequences, NM, the clouds broke loose and I had to seek shelter to don wet gear. If the shelter were more significant I might have stayed a while but the dry space beneath the tree didn’t last so I was back on the road immediately. Thanks to the FROG TOGGS I was as comfortable and as dry as I could have asked for under the conditions. If visibility had not been reduced due to the pounding and blowing rain it would have been business as usual.
Even with the conditions I was able to keep highway speeds in the 65MPH area. I was not much of an obstacle to others, I kept good pace and even performed sever overtakes to pass others. I guess the best part about the low visibility was that I dod not pay attention to how little fuel I had and the large number of miles to the next station.
Seventeen miles to the next gas station and I was already on “E”!! This provided great conditions to remind me to think of GOD. Needless to say, I made it and celebrated by revving the engine excessively once I was at the pump.
Thank God, and go GoldWing