Flagstaff to Albuquerque

First stop Macy's for a wonderful cup of coffee. I have been here a couple times and it a cozy place with nice baked goodies as well. Prefect start and it's a short walk from the hotel.
Flagstaff is a pretty ok town. Northern Arizona University is here which has 25K students which means it has all kinds of places to go out to, all kinds of sporting goods places and all the other things that go along with a college town. I also saw a sign coming in yesterday saying it was the first STEM city in the US, so it committed to Science technology Engineering and Math through government, business and education. Nerd heaven. And I could ride my motorcycle year round and start each days ride with a cup of Macy's coffee!!
I had a nice walk through downtown again. My cranky knee is much less cranky and I stopped taking the Alleve stuff a couple days ago. The beemer is very therapeutic, maybe I could write it off as a medical expense? I hear the new ones are even more so..
So I had this great plan today with a fun destination, but it was not to be. Somehow my little iPhone map appeared to tell me that I could take Rt 99 south east and wiggle through Arizona and get to Pie Town, home of Pie-O-Neer Pies and the Good Pie Cafe and other pie related business. So I rode to Winslow (did not stand on the corner this time) and headed down Rt 99. and the first sign I see is a large one saying they do not plow it in the winter, only maintain it so much, do not patrol it on the weekend, etc.

They could have saved some taxpayer money with the good old "I'd turn back if I were you" sign from the Wizard of Oz. The first 20 miles were pretty ok, but the only person I say was guy in a truck burying something next to and abandoned tank of some kind. OK, not that weird. Then the sign saying the state did not maintain this road any more followed by a county maintenance sign. The only maintenance I coul detect was they did a nice job mowing the grass growing up in the cracks in the pavement, but still ok. The another 20 miles or so and the county announced they stopped maintaining the road, and I suppose since there was no other signs, you kind of could fill a pothole or 2 your self if you felt so inclined. And the potholes were a plenty.

It was about this time I say the cutoff to Heber which looked a little less traveled than this one. And no cell service out here, so I decided to keep weaving through the potholes and maybe hit a bigger road. I went another few miles to where the road ended and continued on a dirt goat path. There was a trailer back in the woods, but I was worried I'd interrupt their Pagan rituals so decided to just turn back and go back to Winslow. Somewhere there is a retired BMW engineer I want to thank for over designing this piece of machinery between my legs so it does not break down in places like this..
So back to Winslow and having wasted a couple hours by now, I decided to just hit the interstate all the way to Albuquerque. The only excitement was 2 pretty good thunderstorms on the way. The first one came in bird dropping sized drops and I hid under a bridge and got my rain stuff on. It only lasted 20 minutes or so and was almost delicious in that it dropped the temperature by 20 degrees and my wet gloves made my hands wonderfully cold from the evaporative cooling. I almost took my rain stuff off, but I could see another big thunderstorm up ahead and was treated to another 10 minute downpour. After everything dried off, I stopped and took off all the rain stuff and by this time I was only 20 minutes outside ABQ. I found Jakes place and was a little early.

We had a nice long stroll with Jake's summer roommate Joe, who is also a quantum guy. We had a couple if cold ones and a nice dinner inside garage doors so when the lightning and thunder came, we were just outside the reach of the raindrops. So nice long walk back catching up on the physics world and crash. Tomorrow Jake has to work so I'll poke around ABQ and maybe we can go for a ride or walk after he gets the time travel thing a little closer to completion. Life is good..