This morning it was overcast. Motel breakfast was no worth eating except the yogurt, but I had to eat it with a fork. Walked a few blocks down the street to get a reliable cup of coffee at the McD's. Large one!
Still no phone so I scribbled some notes on how to get to Best Buy north of Albuquerque, loaded the bike up, gassed up down the street and headed north. Sure enough, I could see the rain ahead of me so under a bridge when it started, all the rain stuff on, and back on the road.
The scribbled notes got me close enough to the BestBuy so I could go old school and stop and ask people where it was. The Bose Hearphones are great since I can have noise cancelling but also hear people talking to me without removing my helmet (people talking is not considered noise somehow??). After a couple asks, I found a giant BestBuy store, parked under a tree, removed all the drippy rain gear and went in hoping they could help me out. An hour and a half later, I had a new phone with all my apps, contacts, email, etc transferred. So back out, rain stuff back on, punch in somewhere east (Santa Rosa), but the Google Maps app crashed. OK, rain stuff off, back into the store, and they forgot that before you use the apps, you have to update them all. So I sat for 30 minutes and waited for all the apps to update using the nice fast wifi.
OK, now the apps work and off I go with the nice Google lady guiding me through the back streets, onto interstate 25 South and then east on interstate 40. Once I left the 6 lane craziness I stopped for coffee and tried to use the Wyndam app to book a hotel, but it doesn't work. Texted Deb and she texted me the setup info, punched it all in and decided I would land in Dalhart TX, booked the room and back on the road. No rain all afternoon, 70's and lower 80's so perfect. Not sunny and I do not know if it was hazy or smokey or what, but just dull sky all afternoon. But the temperature was perfect. Stopped in Tucumcari NM (remember the song) which I had been through years ago and my memory was a dead nothing town, but I went the back way through town before, so this time I got off the last exit which takes you right up the main drag. Lots of Rt66 type tourist attractions. Actually pretty cute.
The north east on Rt56 to Dalhart TX. Lost another time zone (2 in two days). Called my brother (with my new phone and he was headed west and landing somewhere in NY tonight.
Got to Dalhart and they had to cancel the reservation because Deb's name is all over the account, and she has a different last name, so I spent quite a long time explaining things and she finally let me stay.
Nice walk down the street to a dive Mexican joint (no beer), then back to the hotel, tuck the bike in, write this and bed.
P.S. The new throttle lock is great!
Odometer start: 1430
Odometer: 1811-1430=381
Gas: 65.5, 67..5
Random notes:
- Saw a huuuge hamburger farm. Must have been a couple thousand beef cows.
- Saw some buffalo, not wild mind you, just rambunctious.
- 5 roaches last night (bad news), all of them dead (good news)(crunchy when you step on them in the middle of the night. None tonight (so far)
- Scored a $0.59 "senior coffee" at McD's, Getting old is like printing money $$$$
- everyone agreed that last week was a scorcher.
Those feed lots are somethin' else.. definitely made me think a lot about where my protein comes from :/
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