840 Miles of Southwest Fun!

It all started out with replacing a REALLY bent inner fork tube for the VFR. Check it out… <sarcasm>Can you see where it is bent? I’m not sure that it is pronounced enough.</sarcasm>

Tamara and I fixed the bike up together and went on a ride to Western NM and Eastern AZ over the Memorial Day weekend holiday. Check out the photos here: Memorial Day Weekend Ride.

Day 1 (Friday): 80 miles to Socorro

We left after work around 6:15pm and headed to Socorro. The wind was a bit high and we were heading into it. The one hour drive to Socorro couldn’t go by fast enough! An annoying start to the ride. We stayed at a Howard Johnson that was strategically placed across the street from Socorro Springs Brewery. They have the best beer and pizza in the Southwest! This would be our only stay in a hotel, too.

Day 2 (Saturday): 280 miles to Bill Evans Lake

The 280 miles to Bill Evans Lake outside of Silver City involved a beautiful drive to the Bosque del Apache just south of Socorro on NM1 and then across Emory Pass on NM152. We traveled north on NM35 and NM15 to the Gila Cliff Dwellings. The day was growing late from taking our time at the Bosque and then stopping at overlooks on the way over the pass. We wanted to try to find some hot springs in the mountains, but did not find any (that were free to the public at least). We ate dinner at a fine dining lodge called the Breathe Inn (ha!). It was in the middle of nowhere, but the food truly was fine. We had brie cheese with a strawberry glaze and chile rubbed shrimp cocktail for appetizers. Then, stuffed chicken and blackened ahi tuna with a fruit salsa! Pretty neat little stop in the middle of nowhere. We made our way to Silver City and decided to press on instead of stopping for the night just north of town at a campground. We found a public man-made lake (Bill Evans Lake) that had free camping and we called it a night there.

Bosque, Emory Pass, Cliff Dwellings, NM15

Unfortunately, we did not bring the proper sleeping gear for the weather. We got a bit cold. This time, dawn couldn’t come fast enough! As a matter of fact, I woke up once at night and thought dawn was coming. I was very anxious for it to show up. Then a few minutes later, Tamara got up to go to the bathroom, and I hear her say, “Awe crap! It’s the moon!” HAHAHA, we got a great laugh out of that the next morning… We got out of camp around 8am and headed West to Arizona. We made Clifton, a mining town, at around 10am and grabbed breakfast at a very busy local hole in the wall. We met up with two BMW riders from Phoenix that were also going north on US191. They had made the trip before and told us some pointers. We kept up with them for the first few miles, but we wanted to stop at overlooks and they didn’t. So we lost them. Then, we met up again at Hannagan Meadow Lodge. The BMW guys shortly after we arrived. They were trying to get all the way back to Phoenix that night! They were high mileage riders. We made it back to New Mexico after a lunch stop in Alpine, AZ. We pressed through Apache Creek (our original stop) and then tried to find food in Pie Town. Unfortunately, everything was closed… They were supposed to have good pie, too. We went back to Quemado (40 miles round trip). Oh, did I mention that there were 40MPH winds, too? Yea, it was really windy. It really beat us up good! Tamara found the “World’s Largest Chicken Fried Steak”, and it really wasn’t that great… We had fully bellies, which helped our attitude as we fought the wind again to get to the Cibola National Forest for camping. We found a great spot tucked off an unpaved Forest Service road (FR-6A) that had a beautiful view of the Sawtooth Mountains (pretty, but not the same as Idaho’s.

Day 4 (Monday): 160 miles to Albuquerque

Again it was cold, and we were cold and dawn couldn’t come fast enough. We slept later after the sun began to warm the tent nicely. We headed to the VLA, and took the walking tour. Got up close with a dish and saw the service repair building. Then, we fought the wind to Socorro before heading north to home trying to avoid the interstate wherever we could. We found NM-47 which goes from Belen to Albuquerque along the river. It was a great road and much nicer than the interstate.

All the photos can be found here: 2008 Memorial Day Weekend Ride

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