I have to admit I was cranky as I packed up wet stuff. And it only got worse as I almost ran out of gas.
Packing Up
I awoke this morning and packed up my wet and damp belongings. Worst of all was putting on a wet helmet and a damp riding suit. It felt gross.
At the same time, I felt fortunate to have survived the storm without any damage.
Roswell New Mexico
I made my way to Roswell. Roswell is famous for a reported crash of a UFO in 1947. The city now capitalizes on the incident with lots of references to aliens and UFOs.
I really wasn’t that interested at all.
Running out of Gas
As I was leaving the city I saw I had 130 km or 81 miles of fuel range on my motorcycle. When I was in Alaska I always filled up when I hit the 200km range mark. But in the lower 48 states I often waited until my fuel light came on at 80 km before looking for a place to fill up. Today was no different.
I got to a fuel range of 100 km or 60 miles and checked on my GPS for gas stations. It didn’t show that any were ahead. They were all behind me. I still figured there had to be one in the next 50 miles. I kept going.
As I got further away the GPS still showed no gas stations ahead. I began to slow down to 80 km in a 121 km zone to save fuel.
As the miles piled up I saw on my GPS that a gas station was 60 km ahead. I had a range of 60km! That is if my guage was accurate. Who knows if it is. I slowed right down and began riding 50 km in 6th gear on the side of the road. I have no idea what the best speed or gear is to conserve fuel, but I figured this was it. I was keeping the RPM as low as possible.
I watched the gap between my fuel range and the distance to the gas station increase. I kept hoping there would be a gas station over the next hill that wasn’t on my GPS. There wasn’t. Between Roswell and Vaughn there is nothing!!!
I was so happy when I saw in the distance a gas station. I had managed to conserve enough fuel that there was now 16 km on my fuel range. I had made it. It took forever though as I crawled along on the side of the highway.
After filling up with gas I was soooooo happy to be going the speed limit again.
Albuquerque
I finally made it to the sunshine of Albuquerque. After eating in A Taco Bell where I watched homeless people pick scabs off their faces, I went to the KOA where I dried out my stuff.
My Route for September 16, 2016
