Apr 27 - Las Vegas NM to Albuquerque NM

Trip Adviser earned their keep. the hotel was pretty worn but very clean and the owners were extremely nice. All it takes is a smile sometimes..
The plan today was to 1.) do laundry somewhere so the person sitting next to me on the plane did not suffer, 2.) find a Suzuki shop so I can sit on one of those VStrom 650s that everyone keeps raving about, 3.) take Jake out to dinner one more time and 4.) get to the airport on time.
First lets go look for a castle. Deb & Hannah said that I had to stop at United World College near Las Vegas. It took a while to find but it is in Montezuma NM and when you approach it, it looks like well, a castle. Not much going on so the students must have been sleeping it off.
So back to Las Vegas from Montzuma and down Rt 25. It's back to rolling brown grassland but with mountains sprinkled in. I have been looking at these for a couple weeks but it is still interesting compared to back home.
Santa Fe is way too busy so I bypassed it again and stopped for coffee where the Turquoise Road starts (Rt14). A guy with a Harley (of course) chatted me up. He was from Norway and his English was ok. He flew to Los Angeles, bought a used Harley, and was taking 6 weeks to drive across the US. Then ship the Harley to Norway. He had beautiful leathers with all kinds of Norwegian embroidered on it. No mistaking where he was from, and very proud of his home land. As near as i could tell, he was trying to go to a couple Harley rallies.

I have taken the Turquoise Road before and it goes right through Madrid (not pronounced they way you think). They filmed a movie called "Wild Hogs" there and it has since turned into a tourist stop. It was busy today with people walking in the road so you had to obey the 25 mph speed limit for good reason.
Other than Madrid, it was pretty quiet on Rt14. I usually take Rt 40 to Albuquerque, but today I wanted to go down the east side of the mountains. This turned out to be surprisingly nice road. It is high enough on the mountainside so you get a view to the east of the plains and far enough down the mountain that you get a view of the mountain to the west. Lots of little tons with old Spanish history. This roas reminds me that there is a lot of years of Spanish influence here before the white men moved west in the 1800s.

I hit Mountainair, which I had been to before back in November but ran out of daylight. There is more town here than I say before, but not much. The hotel is for sale if anyone is interested. The ride off the mountain gave good views and at the bottom I took the shortcut to Belen and then back on Rt25 north to ABQ. I found the Suzuki shop and a not so knowledgeable sales guy showed me the VStom. Feels pretty nice sitting on it, but he made sure to hang onto the bike so I wouldn't tip it over. Jeez.
Every time I run into a guy riding one of these they gush over how great it is. Hmmm.
OK, laundry next. I found a nice not crowded laundromat and the lady running it was cleaning everything. It was spotless and she was obviously proud of it. She was very nice and treated everyone very nicely. Who wouldn't want to come back here to do their laundry..

So I still had plenty of time to kill before Jake got back from the lab so what better way to spend time than on top of a motorcycle. I headed south to get some good pics somewhere. Lots of interesting clouds rolling in. Got lost just enough times to burn the time I had and I made it back just as Jake was getting back. I unloaded everything from the bike and packed up the big bad with all the motorcycle stuff. Then we walked to a pizza place and had dinner. Nice walk back and a long chat with my son. Taxi picked me up at 10 for the 11:59 flight. Hopefully I can sleep on the plane...

362 miles today. Odometer at the beginning of vacation 90518. Odometer at the end 93675. Total miles this trip 3157 miles.