April 15 Pam's trip

Tulsa to Eureka, Missouri
After having a profitable evening at the casino, and a restful, free night, I was ready to hit the road again.  The remaining miles in Oklahoma were uneventful, but the breeze was starting to pick up.  I entered Missouri outside of Joplin (famous for their devastation from a major tornado outbreak), and the world changed.  Missouri roads are not so nice, okay, they shake you up like a blender!  Also, the scenery suddenly changes.  More population, less open land, more trees and the dog wood and redbud trees are in bloom.  No more blooming cacti!  As the day progressed, the wind picked up out of the southeast - which means it was nudging me broadside all day and wasn't helping my gas mileage!  There were times that I'd hit a gap in the hillside, and bam! the wind would slam me!  And that says alot because this motorhome really doesn't get moved around by wind and 18 wheelers!  Between the rough road and fighting the wind, I was starting to get fatigued.  Fortunately, I was almost at my campground, or so I thought!  16 miles from my stop, I-44 traffic came to a screeching halt.  Traffic was at a total stand still - enough that we all shut down our engines!  About 1/2 mile away from me, down the hill and on the curve, there was a bad wreck.  With the help of my binoculars and my high view from the motorhome window, I could see everything.  We were all at a stand still for about an hour and when we finally got moving in one line, I could see the many vehicles that were going to be towed (looked like they were from not being able to stop for the initial accident).  The accident started with a travel trailer flipping - it was already loaded up on a flat bed.  That shakes you up and slows you down!  Fortunately I didn't have far to travel, and had a reservation at the KOA, so I was able to pull in, set up, and crack a much needed beer! It's an early night because tomorrow is St Louis and Indianapolis!

This Missouri rest area has small buildings (that are picnic shelters) looking like a little old fashioned town 

The building on the left was the restrooms, etc.

My baby taking a break.  She looks better with all wheels on the ground!!

A half and half mix was just what I needed after this day!

April 15 - Carlsbad, NM to Hobbs,NM

April 15, 2016.....72.76 miles in 6:20....699.59 miles in ten days....ascent...1155 ft....14,546 ft of climbing for the trip....
Today was an eventless ride through the Chihuahua desert area, with very little that stood out. I saw many dead coyotes and one dead javelina or wild pig, not sure which. The entire ride was made on US 62/180, which is a great road with a great shoulder from Carlsbad to Hobbs. It is just like an interstate, without the traffic. I would say most of the traffic was local, and it all had to do with the potash, oil, or gas industries, which was all there was out there .  Potash is a mineral used in fertilizer and some soaps. More potash near Carlsbad, more gas and oil near Hobbs. There was a steady rolling, elevation for the entire length of the trip.
I am no longer the rootinest, rootinest,  shootinest, long haired cowpoke north, south, and West of the Pecos. (Credit for that quote goes to Yosemite Sam). I crossed the Pecos in Carlsbad, so I am east of the lawlessness now!! The climb was out of the Pecos valley, and Hobbs is about 500 ft higher than Carlsbad.
The most pleasant surprise of the day, was the town of Hobbs. I took my panniers off, and rode around town, just to check it out. I stopped at a Weinersnitzel, had two chili dogs, and then went to KFC and picked up some chicken for later.
If you've been watching the weather channel, I am now very near the 'dry line', where dry air from the desert southwest, and moist air from the gulf collide, and nasty winds and storms break out. There was a chance of that happening in Hobbs, but it fizzled out. As I go into Texas tomorrow, the winds will be present, and we'll see how well I do dodging storms. Only 400 miles to Dallas!!!

White soil is related to the potash industry

I found this AMC Javelin in Hobbs, my dream car in 1973

Downtown Hobbs

April 13 - 14, Pam's trip

Yesterday, when I woke up in Amarillo, it was so foggy, you couldn't see across the road. So I and my fellow campers delayed our departures until the fog started to burn off!  Once I got back onto the road, I got to see hundreds of windmills, cotton fields and cattle!  I don't think I mentioned in my first post that as I was climbing the mountains out of Mesa, I was losing a lot of power in my engine.  (At the time, I just thought I was carrying a heavy load.)  Well, as I was traveling through Texas and into Oklahoma, the roads are rolling, not really mountainous, but my poor motorhome was struggling and throwing check engines lights on and off!  Not good!  When I was about 60 miles from Oklahoma City, I was struggling to go 55, and the light was coming on more frequently, and staying on longer.  I did not want to break down in the big city, so I limped off an exit in Hinton, OK that had a Loves truck stop.  I parked with the trucks, shut down and removed my bike from the ladder rack so I could access the engine.  My thought was that maybe I developed a bad oil leak, and so I checked the oil, but it was good.  So then I went into the truck stop garage that dealt with tires, but they said that they did other things too.  They said they could run the computer on my engine, but I had to bring it into their garage.  So back I went, disconnected the jeep, hopped into the rig, turned the key, and.......nothing!  I was dead in the water!  So the mechanic came out to me, did some looking around, ruled out a fuel line or filter problem, and said it must be my turbocharger since I mentioned that my boost psi was low.  He said I needed to get towed to a Cummins engine place.  Fortunately, I have Good Sam Roadside Assistance which paid for the entire tow!  Yea!  We also purchased a Good Sam extended warranty when we bought the motorhome, and it would cover the turbo!  So Good Sam called around and found a Cummins shop, which was 35 miles back from where I came from, and also arranged for wrecker to come and tow there.  It took them over 90 minutes to hook my baby up and to get her ready to tow.  It broke my heart!  Anyway, by the time we got to Clinton, it was 730 pm, and the wonderful owner of Challis Diesel Service, came out and unlocked his gates so that the motorhome, jeep and a very tired Pam could get dropped off.  As they were dropping the motorhome, Ray Challis, the owner asked me some questions about my problems.  He then said he thought that it wasn't the turbo, but the fuel filters. If I didn't mind, he was going to run diagnostics on the rig in the morning, and would change out filters and go from there.  So he locked me in the yard and I was in bed by 9!
Eight this morning he and his workers got to it, and sure enough, when they dumped the fuel filters into a container, the fuel was dirty.  Somewhere along the line, I got bad diesel fuel and it clogged up the filters.  They took the rig for a test drive and she was better!!!  So I paid my bill, and proceeded to hook up the jeep.  Ray came out to help me check my lights on the jeep, and bam!  No brake lights!  So he and his guys went through my fuses, checking them until they found the bad fuse.  New fuse later I had brake lights again!  When I asked what I owed them (it took some time to find the problem), Ray told me to have a safe trip!  Talk about good, down home people!
So long story short, I got back on the road around noon, got through Oklahoma City at a good time for traffic, and pulled into the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino RV parking lot for the night.  Was it a good trip?  Oh hell yes!  My baby had her power back and we cruised that interstate!!! After a rough 24 hours, I went into the casino, had an awesome steak at Toby Keith's and won some $$$$.

Leaving Amarillo, TX and picking up the windmills again!

They are everywhere!!

My tow truck

The guys trying to get her hooked up

And they start to lift her!  It was killing me!

Almost ready to roll

And there she goes, heading down the road!  But she did make it there safely!

April 14 - Pine Springs campground at Guadeloupe Pass to Carlsbad, NM

52.29 miles in 3:55. (626.83 miles in nine days, averaging  69.647 miles per day)....ascent 568 ft (13,391 ft for the trip). The crazy statistic is that I descended 3179 of the 4403 that I climbed yesterday!
I got off to a slow start, having a spam sandwich breakfast while admiring my campground view. I remembered the howling and yapping of coyotes waking me up sometime during my short snoozes. I broke down and git out of there at about 10:30, knowing there was no rush to ride 55 miles  with a tailwind. The tailwind thing didn't always work out, as it was more of a steady smack in my right ear. The descent out if the national park was quick, as I did 6 miles in 17 minutes! On a bike! That's over 30 mph, on nice roads. Then US 62/180 began its boring, rolling gradual descent into Carlsbad. Yesterday and today, I saw my mountain for a total of 85 miles, coming and going. That's a big mountain, with big valleys on both sides. My experience for the day was seeing a dead, and pretty decomposed ringtail, but it's the first one of those nocturnal buggers I've ever scene. Mostly, I watched trucks hauling potash out of distant quarries.
About 30 miles into the ride, I came to the turnoff to the Carlsbad caverns. I had been tossing around whether or not to visit them all day. When I got to White's City, a commercial town built to support the national park, my decision was made easy for me. It was seven more miles, uphill, the elevator to the cavern was down for maintenance, which meant a 750 ft climb on two bad Achilles tendons, and a guy at the store told me it would take four hours to do the tour justice.....OK . .never mind. Pam and I will come back. I got on my bike and I had a nice ride into Carlsbad, even though I was just, tired. Got to a motel at 230, crashed out, showered, shaved, and walked a mile each way to mess up a Pizza Inn buffet. All u can eat for $10. Salad, pasta, pizza, that tasted nothing like I used to serve in 1974, when I worked at a Pizza Inn.
Don't forget to recheck my last entry for pictures that have been added.

One of the reasons I'd rather ride on the road than the shoulder

One of the birds of prey that I think monitored me on my ride from El Paso

Or was it this one?  There were four or five in different places!

Leaving Texas

Entering New Mexico

Made it to Carlsbad

Must be getting close to the Pecos!!!

April 13 - El Paso to Guadeloupe National Park

102.81 miles in 9:17...ascent 4403 ft.....I went into this ride knowing that it could turn into an epic experience, and it did turn out to be one of those tour defining rides that I'll never forget. It started out with a ten mile stretch of Zaragoza Blvd to get out of el Paso. I had two stops for provisions for my first tent camping meal (read spam and vanilla wafers). From there it was US 62/180 all the way to my destination. It's a great road with great 8 ft shoulders almost the entire way. There was never very much traffic, but a decent amount was truck traffic. The first 20 miles was a gradual/ not so gradual ascent of about 1800 ft, followed by about 50, yes 50, miles of gradual descent, to a dried up lake very similar to what The Great Salt Lake is now. Scenery was very sparse, with only one huge mountain looming in the distance. It turned out to be the mountain I would camp on. The last 15 miles was a brutal ascent into the national park. It would be a testing climb on fresh legs, but at the end of a century, it was tough. There were times I felt like I would just go into massive cramps, but it never happened. The wind was not as cooperative as the last couple days, but it wasn't a hindrance either. Highlights included two herds of antelope, three dead owls, several huge birds of prey which I will try to identify tonight in the comfort of a motel room (this was written a day late due to lack of phone service), and a lady I met from Wales who is doing her USA leg of a walk around the world. While I was talking to her, a sheriff pulled up to see if everything was alright, and behind him pulled up two chicks in short dresses who were about to run-out of gas. So, out in the middle of nowhere, we had quite a crowd.
I got to the campground with just enough time to figure out my tent and get set up before night fall. It was cold as hell over night, and I had no blanket so I (tried) to sleep in many layers of clothes. My feet froze. The view from the campsite made up for all the work to get there, however.

An early sign of my destination

My first climb out of El Paso on US 62/180

One of the things I like to do is look for the "original" road that follows along the new road, with its own history

This little oasis in .......may have been a place to stay instead of two days in El Paso.  If I only would have know about it!  Cornudas 

My first sighting of Guadalupe Mountain National Park.  Still 70 miles away!!!

Rosie, from Wales, who is walking around the world.

And the sheriff shows up!

Getting closer!

The dried up salt lake at the bottom of my descent

A shadow selfie at 15mph!

Closer yet!

The climb is on now!

Made it to the park, now for the final 1200 ft ascent!

Just before the campground.

At last

Nice set up, eh?

View from my site in these three pictures.

The tallest point in Texas!

Recovering in El Paso (April 12, 2016)

22.51 miles in 2:14 from one side of El Paso to the other.....471.73 miles for the trip. I climbed more today in 22 miles than I did yesterday in 102 miles! Ascent....735 ft (8420 for the trip
The long ride yesterday tired my legs out pretty good, and El Paso is not the most bicycle friendly town to get around in. I thought that a rest day is in order, especially since tomorrow is going to be another  century ride with lots of climbing on Guadeloupe pass. The closest motel is 179 miles away, so tomorrow is going to be a camp out night.
I waited until about 11:30 to check out of one motel 6, and I was checking into another by 2:00, 23 miles closer to tomorrow's destination. I am in a hilly, northern part of town, and I was on the side of a mountain for the entire ride. Most of the time I could look to my right, and see the lower parts of southern El Paso, as well as Juarez, Mexico. I rode some of the same roads that I've been on before, and for a short stretch I was within a quarter mile of Mexico, and actually passed under one of the bridges into the country. Rain was in the forecast all day, even though it stayed to the west of me. I watched it rain in Mexico, but never got wet.
Once I checked in, I walked a few miles to a Whataburger, ate lunch, then walked around a shopping area and bought an inflatable pillow for tomorrow night. Achilles tendons were functional, but still can't toe off very well. Early to bed, early to rise for tomorrow.

One of the five border crossings in El Paso

Monument in Mexico

A new kind of bloom I've not seen before.

WHATABURGER!!!

Rain in Mexico.  Dry in the US.

April 12 - Pam's trip

Casa Blanca, NM to Amarillo, Tx
Today was a long, kinda boring trip.  The day started out cold!  47 degrees is cold to me considering that it was 97 last Tuesday in Mesa!  The day was cloudy all day but I did manage to dodge the rain!  The scenery was pretty early on, but then I just had hours of high desert/flat lands!  The road (I-40) was wonderful in western New Mexico, but Albuquerque's roads were terrible!  It is neat cresting the mountain and then dropping down into the valley that is Albuquerque, but the roads are like a washboard!  After climbing out of the valley, the roads got better for awhile.  I did pass 3 bicyclists on I-40, they weren't loaded down like Mike is, but they probably have a support vehicle.
One thing I noticed is the lack of road kill along side the road, except for a dead bald eagle!  But there were lots of horses and cattle roaming in the endless flatland.  Oh, I also had the USD rowing team pass me.  So does the USD stand for University of South Dakota?  I don't know!
For those of you who didn't read my blog last June, you don't know about the windmills in Texas!  The windmill farm runs parallel to I-40 in Texas, so I decided to see how long they stayed with me.  I picked them up at mm14 and they ended at mm51!!!  Seriously!  And tomorrow they will start again on the other side of Amarillo.
Well, that's all for now!

I'm not sure what these formations are called.  Mesas??

Eastern New Mexico is pretty flat, with mountains or mesas or whatevers in the distance.