Heading towards the Grand Canyon

Ride Past White Sands

Show Low

We left Carrizozo New Mexico at six am this morning after only covering one hundred miles the day before due to very strong winds. We stopped at a little town with less ten 1500 people who live there. After lunch we popped into a Pawn shop, because we have never been in one before. The proprietor Barbie, was very cool and we spent an hour or two chatting and sharing views of the world.

So in the dark this morning we headed of into the desert, past The White Stands, where the first Nuclear Bomb was tested,It was very cold 3c the views were spectacular, we took some pictures but we needed to clear the area before the sun kicked up the winds again.

We are stopped at Show Lo (Arizona) a pretty large town. Tomorrow we will go visit the Meteor Crater before heading up to the Grand Canyon..

The route to come !

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The Aliens have landed

Heading southwest we passed through Hereford, a cattle town where the smell of cows filled the air, it was like going back in time, a train track ran next to the road and broken down buildings in the old western style creaked and swayed in the wind. We sat at a railway crossing and watched as a train loaded with cattle trundled past for ten minutes, thats how large the train was!

It was a great ride into New Mexico through open planes, we only shared the road every twenty minutes or so, it was like a dual carriage so way we rode side by side on roads thats ran straight for as far as the eye could see, roads that would make the Roman Empire jealous.

We eventual landed in Roswell,I wasn't sure what to expect after hearing the name of this town for many years associated with UFO conspiracies. It is a town like any other on the surface, with it McDonalds and shops, but look closer and you notice all the lamp post have alien heads, even the insurance companies have space ships in their advertising, its cheesy but it also fun, spot the alien! Resident here enjoy the their unusual tourist trade, some didn't even know the story of the UFO incident until it was aired on TV in the 80's, Once a year they have a Alien Festival, unfortunately we are a month early.

Winds are becoming challenging and today we are forcast 50mph gusts so we are going to have a rest day and get our hair cut.. Who knows it might be by an alien....

Texas off-road

We took a detour off the beaten track, we ended up in the middle of no where miles away from the main roads and found a lot of sand, its a big bikes worst nightmare, three hours later and a lot of sweat we managed to find our way back to a dirt track and then the road. The Gps and a map was useless, We knew which way we had to go but the track ended. After cutting a across open land for miles, we even had to cut a fence to get to the track, if we hadn't we would of still been on the lost trail. We fixed the fence, learned a lesson or two and laughed about it later..

Taz had a drop, just a wobble and she put it down, Taz did amazing well, she mastered the Dakar, the 1200 is heavy beast to be taken off road, i will want to loose the panniers for anything serious.

The Windy City

It was a windy day again today, so we took half a day off from riding across Oklahoma and went to see the new Iron Man movie in El Rino a tiny little town along te I40 which had a fantastic cinema...

We also paid a visit to the post office to get stamps for the post cards, you have to but them from the post office it next to impossible to find them any where else...