June 17th - Gallup, New Mexico (BST -7hrs)

We really needed to catch up with some housekeeping this morning, so opted to stay behind while the rest of the group rode to Sandia Crest and/or Santa Fe. I went to reception to ask whether there was a Walmart or similar store in town.

The receptionist replied, “You’ve heard of the middle of nowhere, well, we’re on the outskirts … “

So, no hope, then, of recharging our phone card and, thus, no hope of calling mum today. We did our laundry, had breakfast, and set out to do a bit of shopping in Santa Fe, 100 miles down the road.

Our only real goal for the day was to eat lunch in Madrid, setting for the biker comedy, “Wild Hogs”. We decided to follow the old road, as per the itinerary, and ended up in a biker comedy of our own making. It has to be said, there are a few gaps in George’s itinerary.  Probably all very well, if you are travelling with the main group, but a little confusing otherwise. The trouble is that so many of the alignments of Route 66 are now little more than dirt roads, it is sometimes difficult to judge if you are going the wrong way. The sign, “DANGER – Active railroad – Look both ways”, probably should have given us a clue. Nevertheless, we ended up riding about a mile along a nice stretch of gravel road, before we finally admitted defeat and turned back.

By the time we actually arrived in Santa Fe and started to look for parking spaces, our enthusiasm for shopping had waned, and we were getting hungry. There were ominous clouds building, so we donned our wet weather gear.

It was gone 2pm when we arrived in Madrid, but we weren’t the last.Doug and Joanne had only just caught up, having ridden from Tucumcari, and there were a couple of groups still eating in the Mine Shaft Tavern, the interior of which was used for the Del Fuegos’ biker bar in the film.

The clouds stayed with us for the rest of the day, though we had only the odd sprinkle of a shower. However, the wind was fierce, whipping my head around whenever I checked the road behind me, and ripping Joanne’s glasses right off her nose. Despite a thorough, and rather hazardous, search of the shoulder, we had to admit they were gone for good. So we stopped again a few miles on so that she could ring her optician for a prescription and, in the meantime, tried to help out another biker who had lost his oil sump plug. After a long and futile discussion with the two men, we donated some two-part epoxy and a spare bolt that looked as if it might fit … and left them gauping at the slick of oil that was slowly forming under the old Kawasaki. Ah well, you can lead a horse to water …

The only other stop was at the Continental Divide, where a fabulous double rainbow appeared briefly, and we were joined by a loan Spaniard riding a Harley. Having exchanged pleasantries and taken his photo – well, as I pointed out to him, no one else was going to – we were on our way again. It was about 7.30pm by the time we arrived at the El Rancho hotel in Gallup.

Donny and Rose greeted us with the news that Gary had been in surgery for six hours and was still on a respirator.  His leg had been amputated above the knee …

This entry was posted on 19/06/2009 at 10:04 am and is filed under US Trip 2009. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.

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