The Beemers last day

The whining started just about dawn. I knew this was going to happen, happens every time. The Beemer must have overheard me talking about my flights and it was going on in the garage about being abandoned again. So I gave in and decided to give it one last good drubbing. Jake had to go to work and save the world again so I went looking for a helmet to rent for the afternoon. The wonderful guy at PJ's motorcycle shop just gave me one and said bring it back tomorrow, no charge. OK, I gotta take the nicest guy award away from whoever got it last and give it to PJ's. Jake will have to ride his bike up there tomorrow and return it. Wow!
So Jake's roommate Adam said take the Turquoise Highway to Santa Fe, which I realized I had been on before and it was indeed a great road. It goes through Madrid where the movie "Wild Hogs" was filmed. I took old Rt66 from PJ's and turned onto Rt14 (aka Turquoise Highway) and rode it all the way to Stanta Fe. SF was a tangle of traffic so instead of fighting it and going to Taos, I went north west and then followed the signs to Los Alamos.

 I stopped at the gate but nobody was around. Judging by the cloud behing the gate shack, they were doing some testing I suppose.
So off toward the Jemez Mountains which is twisty roads and a couple of huge natural meadows high up in the mountains. This time I was stopped at the real gate and I had to present my drivers licence to pass. This is new since last time I went through here, but they were very pleasant about it. Nice chat with another road crew guy as I waited for some new pavement to be put down, which was not rally ready for traffic when we went through and the beemer got a good undercoating.
It was nice and cool up high in the mountains and I realized how nice when I got back down and it was 90+ and humid, which a few people mentioned. The heat was ok, but they complained about the humidity. So back to Albuquerque but this time I took some back roads through all those developments on the west side of the Rio Grande. Some are actually pretty homey with some food crops and horse pastures and stuff you would not find up out away from the river (like cactus and lizards). So back east and onto Rt25 then back to Jakes place. He got back from work just after I pulled in so he put on some road clothes and donned the new helmet and we decided to  head back up to Madrid and have dinner at "The Hollar". It cooled off by the time we got there so dinner was great. I had not eaten all day so I got a salad with chicken on it and I ordered chocolate cake and coffee for Jake and I to split, but it was the size of your head and it nearly split us.

So we decided to climb the mine tailings across the street and instead of coal, I found gold. Actaully I found an Apple II computer with (wait for it) a floppy drive unit that took 8" and 5 1/4" floppies. Wow!! I designed cards that fit inside this puppy 20+ years ago and findly remember nights spent writing 6502 code for it. I'm choking up here so I gotta move on.
We climbed back down from the tailing and under the gate with multiple no trespassing signs (oops) and back to the restaurant.
Madrid was actually less busy than I thought and there were 3 or 4 other bikes in the yard, but they were mostly local guys.

So back toward ABQ with the sun setting to the west of us and then it got dark real fast. I took the interstate, Rt40, to make better time and avoid all the local traffic. Jake navigated me back through the side streets and I pulled the beemer into the garage where it could rest for the next couple months before I come back out and take it on another adventure. I packed everything for tomorrows early flight, which included all my motorcycle gear so I can ride back home on my little dirt bike. Sure am gonna miss the beemer.
Another great, and this time last day on this great trip. The final Odometer reading tonight was 87368 and I left Vermont with 83296 so the beemer carried me 4072 miles in 10 travel days. It has bee wonderful and once again, everyone you meet is great and would do anything for you. There is endless more to see so maybe I can get back this fall and do another loop somewhere..