Running hot and cold in New Mexico (Taos to Carlsbad, 540 km)

I woke early and plotted different routes on the computer for a while until Colin was up, too. It took a while for us to get going, me because I was still busy with google maps, Colin because his sinuses are draining him, but not themselves.

It was hard to leave Taos. It's a very pretty place, largely unspoiled, like Banff, say, thirty years ago, but with a Southwestern flavour. Adobe (or faux adobe) buildings are everywhere, the main street is, in places, quite narrow, as if made for burros rather than cars. The pottery galleries and other artisans' shops easily outnumber more traditional 'souvenir' shops. I wish we'd had more time to explore this place that was home to, at different times, D.H. Lawrence, Georgia O'Keefe and, more recently, Julia Roberts.

After huevos rancheros at El Taoseno (excellent place, mostly local patrons), and a quick fill-up at a local gas station, we were on the road again. It was cold and grey and damp, and we put on our rain gear just in case. Good thing, too, since we soon ran into rain in the mountains east of Taos.

State highway 518 is marvelously swoopy, and if it weren't cold and rainy, and if it weren't for some very slow vehicles who managed to get in front of us, it would have been a fantastic ride. We pulled off at one point to take a couple of pictures and to set up Colin's Go-Pro video camera. There was snow on some of the higher peaks! Not what we expected from New Mexico, to be sure.

Now, let me be clear what I mean by cold. I was wearing two pairs of socks inside my boots, a fleece under my leather jacket, with two shirts beneath that, a balaclava beneath my helmet and mountaineering gloves, in addition to my jeans, leather pants, leather jacket and rain-proof pants and jacket. My feet were still freezing and I still needed my heated grips to save my hands from the same fate.

The rain came and went all through the mountains, and I felt a little bad for the thousands of BMW riders who were attending a rally at a ski resort near Taos, many of them tenting. We heard about this from a woman we met in the parking lot of our motel. She and her husband, retirees, both ride BMWs: he a K1300GT and she an R1200RT. They were attending, but staying comfortably in a heated motel. The wisdom of age, I guess.

Eventually we rode through the rain, and just outside Mora, NM, we pulled over to the roadside so Colin could switch off the Go-Pro and I could remove my rain gear. (I don't mind looking silly if it's keeping me dry, but if there's no danger of getting wet, I'd prefer to forgo looking like an enormous rubber duck on the bike.)

A short way into the town, the local Sheriff took an interest in us - or at least me - and, after slowly u-turning his SUV around, proceeded to follow me for several miles. Having been down this road before, I simply kept my speed just shy of the limit and waited for him to lose interest (or jurisdiction). Then, safely round a bend in the road, I gave the throttle a twist and in very short order closed the distance that had opened between myself and Colin.

The rain threatened a couple of times to come back, but I never did regret shedding the extra gear. We rode on through Las Vegas, NM, which is not at all like its more famous cousin in Nevada. Beautiful brick houses lined the streets we rode through, and the whole place had the perfect small-town feel, like a Norman Rockwell painting come to life - only many of the faces were black or Hispanic or Native, rather than white.

We rode on, changing highways a couple of times, and I began to wonder if we were going to reach a town with a gas station before my tank ran dry. Back home, I generally see my 'fuel up!' light come on at anywhere from 180 km to 250 km. So far, on this trip, I've only seen it once, at 244 km, and then only after the bike had been on its side stand all night. (For those who don't know why that matters, the side stand tilts the gas away from the sensor that prevents the light from coming on. You can go back to not caring now.) We were now approaching 260 km, and while I hadn't seen my low-fuel light come on yet, I wasn't sure whether I should be pleased that I was getting better than usual mileage or worried that the sensor was on the fritz.

Thankfully, the little town of Vaughn had a gas station, although it didn't show up in Colin's GPS, which can find such stuff (as well as motels and BBQ restaurants, although we haven't found one of those yet). We tanked up, and I shed more of my gear, trading my fleece for my jacket's liner and my mountaineering gloves for my regular gauntlets, as well as putting away my balaclava. It was still cloudy, but it was significantly warmer by now, although there was still a cool breeze.

We continued on along US highway 285, and arrived around half past three in Roswell, NM, the mecca of UFO nuttiness, and home of the supposed 'area 51'. It was a fun looking place, and much bigger than I expected. We stopped only long enough to be asked for change by a couple of meth heads, and to get something to eat.

By now the clouds were long gone, and the landscape had changed utterly from the morning.We had started out in alpine forest and were now in semi-arid desert country, the vegetation sparse and stunted, joshua trees and cacti and sage.

We left Roswell and it's big-eyed alien lamp-posts behind, and rode the last hour or so down the highway to Carlsbad. Tomorrow, we plan to do some exploring at Carlsbad Caverns National Park and White Sands National Monument, and who knows what else. New Mexico has been full of surprises so far, and we're looking forward to more of them in the days to come.