A surprisingly non boring day today. I have always wanted to drive through the Oklahoma panhandle since this is where the dust bowl happened. It is actually very agricultural while most everything has some kind of irrigation, much of it seems un-irrigated. Much of it is just open land like New Mexico. There are still tell-tale signs of old abandoned buildings maybe from the dust bowl days. It's hard to imagine living out here back then. It must have been lonely. There are still a few folks who build houses dozens of miles from anywhere. I suppose these days with solar panels and cellular towers, you could live pretty comfortably.
I saw a lot of wildlife today. The little antelopes were everywhere and they are very skittish. I had 10 of them in the middle of the road at one point and had to almost stop for them to get out of the way. I also saw a couple of groups of deer. I assume they were mule deer since they were not white-tail. They seem more non-plussed by traffic.
I followed Rt 412 all the way across Oklahoma New Mexico and just kissed the corner of Texas. Now this is a lonely road since the trucks don't use it much. So if you break down, you better have a blanket.
I have really started to enjoy riding around the small towns I ride through. Each is it's own little tribe of people and they are fairly self contained. If it is small enough, there are no chain stores, but if it is too small, there is not much but boarded up storefronts from "the good old days".
I even saw an old NRG TallTower and instruments way out in the middle of nowhere. Proudly made by Vermonters in little old Hinesburg VT. Does my heart good..
The temperature started dropping and some big ugly clouds came in with those black funnels under them (not tornadoes). I put my rain stuff on, which also warms me up a bit, but the wind also picked up. When I stopped to take a picture of the TallTower, the wind almost knocked my bike over. At first I had a straight-on headwind which made the beemer grunt, but then the road turned a bit and it hit me just off center which makes it very noisy and I have to ride with the full face shield down. It swung some more and an I had the treat of getting blown around the road quite a bit. Not as bad as a guy I passed with a big trailer behind his pickup.
Today's redneck moment was an old pickup truck pulling a tractor-trailer with a chain. Hoped that worked out for ya'.
I was thinking of heading over the mountains toward Taos and I started that way but as I climbed, the temp got even lower and clouds got uglier. I was feeling like I'd been in the ring all day with the cold and wind so I headed back toward the interstate and headed south. I passed a huge Boy Scout camp (Camp Philmont?) up near Cimarron NM but it looked like it had not opened yet.
So south to Las Vegas where I decide to end the day. My flight is tomorrow night late so I may be able to get one more long day in.
375 miles today
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