Day 2. New Mexico!

We arrived at the hotel in Alburquerque, NM at about 10:15 PM after riding 530 miles today. We got ready to leave and Bo locked his bike keys and trailer keys in the trailer (again). He employed Wolfie and a bobby pin and he picked the lock in about 2 minutes. Signs of a mis-spent youth. When we left Oklahoma City, we visited the Oklahoma City National Memorial. I know most people know what this memorial symbolizes but in case you don't, it is a memorial dedicated to the victims and survivors of the Oklahoma City bombing. When a troubled and confused young man named Timothy McVay created a bomb out of ammonium nitrate(fertilizer)and gasoline, then placed the mixture in a rented Ryder truck and parked outside the Alfred P. Murray Federal Building in Oklahoma City. He lit a fuse and then ran like a coward. The memorial is a real emotional experience and is worth a visit if you are in the area. The trip from Oklahoma thru Texas was real flat, very few turns, not curves and some trees. The interstate is not real pleasing but you can travel a lot of miles to get to a destination. The landscape in this area was real strange. We were about 7 miles from the New Mexico state line on I-40 and we crested a small hill. All of a sudden the landscape was like something out of a western. Open land and flat mountian tops. I have never seen anything like it in person. I was truly awestruck. Talk about being in the middle of no where. There was nothing, I mean nothing out there but wide open spaces. You travel many, many miles between exits, rest stops and very few gas stations. I have never paid more attention to a gas guage in all of my life. I can guarantee you it would not be a pleasant place to run out of gas or break down. The landscape looked like a desert, but instead of sand there was short sage brush everywhere. The price of gas was another surprise. It is cheaper here than in Alabama. About $3.80 every where we stop.

We stopped to eat supper and the group decided to drive a little further than planned. Once again another surprise came up. The weather today was great. Never got over 82 degrees. However, in the open plains when night comes, the temperature drops fast, really fast. It got down to 60 degrees on our extended mileage! Another thing we did not expect was the elevation change. We were 7000 feet above sea level and it didn't seem like it at all. I guess it gradually went up after Oklahoma.

We have traveled a total of 1308 miles in the past two days. Tomorrow we head further east and will drive thru the painted desert and visit the Grand Canyon, where we will stay the night. Tomorrow we plan to travel 400 miles.

It is past time for me to get some sleep. Later................