We wake up to brilliant hot sunshine, as you would expect in Texas. Gary tells us not to eat breakfast as we will be having "cinamon rolls" later on in the morning. Being us we have taken a supply of English teabags with us, and have had our morning cup of tea. We raid the fresh fruit cooler for bananas and apples to keep us going. We've now learnt that a Gary hour can sometimes be anything up to 2! First port of call is through the morning traffic of Amarillo to the Harley Davidson Dealers there, Tripps. Wendy travels with Tim the support driver as having a pillion in traffic is not good for John. Unfortunately, Heinz one of the other travelllers manages to drop his bike whilst parking, and it falls on his leg and breaks it. We are very impressed with how quickly ambulance etc arrive. Gary and Tim move into overdrive. Whilst the group is very unsettled by the accident, particularly us in light of our drops, we are all very impressed by the slickness of the operation in a crisis. The group are left in the Harley shop to browse. We make several purchases, others make many more. Those who know Wendy will know of her hatred at being stuck in a shop. Even worse a bike shop! Gary goes off to sort Heinz out at the hospital, Tim takes the group up Cadiallac Ranch. It was created in 1974 by the Ant Farm artists group and installed on land owned by Stanley Marsh, a local millionaire and patron of the arts. There are ten Cadillacs here planted nose down into the soil facing west and at an angle corresponding to that of the Great Pyramid of Giza. The cars date from 1949 to 1963 and represent a number of evolutions of the car line, most notably the birth and death of the defining feature of early Cadillacs – the tail fin. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cadillac_Ranch Tim gives us cans of spraypaint and off we go. Amusingly there is a sign as we enter the field which says that anyone caught causing graffitti is subject to an immedate fine of $10,000 and possibly imprisonment.
After 45 minutes of so of being vandals Tim takes us onto our breakfast venue Adrian, midpoint across Route 66, 1139 miles from Chicago and 1139 milles from Los Angeles. We have the option of ciinnamon rolls, which are wonderfull, coffee/tea and apple pie. The cafe is famoous for its ugly crust pie which Andy our once a day sweet fix rider tries . http://www.uglycrustpies.com/ Tim has to leave the group to take Heinz baggage etc to the hospital. For an hour we are guideless! Like small children we decide that perhaps we will hide the bikes round the back of the cafe/garage for Gary's return. But decide against it as he has had a stressful morning.
Gary finally arrives, and we move on, without support vehicle and Tim. We have decided that we must ride, and not cause any additional stress to Gary and Tim. It is probably the turning point for us. Ivan and Wendy(brother and sister travelling give Wendy plenty of emotional support to make sure that she is a good pillion. We travel through the vast expanse of Texas, lots of rolling fields, with hundreds and hundreds of cattle. IT really is true about Texas, more cattle than people. We race through Bushland trying to make up time. This has huge white grain silos. We notice that many of the trees "lean" into the wind which gusts across the plains. We cross another boundary and go into New Mexico on Interstate40 (I40). Then we continue to ride on pre 1950's Route 66, although it is now unpaved and tarred. This takes us into Tucumari, with the Tucumari mountains ahead of us. Lunch is in Kix on Route 66, an original 1950s cafe. We all sit up at the 'bar' and order lunch. Most people again go for the salads as it is hot, and we know we still have a lot of miles to cover. Tim finaly catches up with us and advises that Heinz is in a hotel, with wheelchair and carer which is good news. We leave Tucumari and Gary recommends that Wendy travels back with Tim as the road has lots of long very slow curves and goes through area with lots of washed down gravel and soil. So back onto the pre 1950 concrete road we head down to San Jon and through the tunnel. Gary stops everyone to check that the route is clear, and the racers in the group enjoy revving their engines through the tunnel. We continue to Cuervo then back onto I40 as the road is in realy bad condition.
As we travel along the I40 we can see two storms converging aheaad of us. Wendy works on Tim's computer in the support vehicle to get the latest weather and storm positions. We race the storm to get to Santa Rosa where we stop to look at Bozo's Auto Museum, which has a collection of customs, hot rods and vintage cars (many for sale). No John wasn't tempted, prefering to stick to his British Classics.
We leave Santa Rosa and move onto the Santa Fe Trail which is the old postal route which winds its way up into the mountains. A fuel stop at Las Vegas, New Mexico and then finally into Santa Fe at about 17.00... and early night despite the delay in the morrning. Ah, and then we remember we have moved onto Mountan Time so actually it is 18.00. Santa Fe is the oldest American town, with a very English feel to it with one traffic systems and the government buildings on the south side of the square. Noone could tell us why. Our hotel is an interestiing boutique hotel. However John is not impressed with a room key not working and three flights of steps. A hurried wash and shower and we meet the rest of the group for Mexican food in a restuarant across the square. The food is good, as we have a day off tomorrow we decide to explore and maybe visit a bar. Tim joins us in another quaint hotel bar in the square and a good night is had by all getting to know people better.
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