Las Vegas Vacation - Take 1

On the road again and in starting the writing of this on day 4 while in our hotel room I have been contemplating many opening lines. I need to explain a couple of details that I am sure some of you will no doubt have some comment on. For instance why is this “cager”, (car) ride on a motorcycle blog site? Well my thoughts were to bring the bike on the trailer and of course ride when I can. After doing some very minor research on the web for normal weather patterns between DFW and Las Vegas it became clear that if we have good weather I could ride, if we have normal weather I could ride but it would be at best chilly, and if the weather was bad it would be fruitless to even try to ride. Just a snippet from what we found on the morning of day 3 at our hotel in Gallup New Mexico. The white stuff is snow, not much I agree but snow still the same.



I will get more into weather details later.

So I have not yet answered the question on the bike versus cage on a biker blog. Well the original plan was to trailer the bike then I thought, well if the weather is normal I would get some riding in but I would say under 50% and if the weather was bad it might be 0% and if the weather was great it would be in the upper 70’s %. So I continued to watch the nation weather pattern and it was a short time that I realized the upcoming weather was going to, well let me say “sucky” for riding. So I thought hey, with the money I save in fuel costs tailoring the bike, wear and tear on the Van and trailer and for that matter the bike itself getting bounced around I will just rent a bike if the weather turns favorable in any state we happen to be in. So as we go the hope is that we can rent a bike and then therefore call this an official bike experience. Now if not, well I guess this is just a cage ride report on the bike blog.

Ok, I know too many words; “we want pictures” especially if this is a cage ride report so far. One other question to answer for those who follow my writings may notice. “Why is this blog report (or if you are reading this on Total Motorcycle website) changing from time to time?” Well the answer is simple, I have not been keeping up on a few rides we have taken this year as when trying to write a contiguous ride report it takes hours, getting the pictures organized and uploaded, and then putting some words to what happened. So I am going to write and update as I get time versus wait until it is all complete and it seems to be and project with no end, as after all I do work for a living. As time goes on I will determine if this new idea works well or not as I know the folks who read these are not shy in their opinions which is exactly what I want.

Day One – Nov 20th

As most of my reports start off when Val is involved we started quite late in the morning, 1110 AM. The weather was nice and warm with forecasts stating we would be headed for some colder weather but we might just be south enough of it to miss most of it. Since we did leave late we were in kind of a hurry to make some miles. As a hindsight comment, Texas has more things of interest for me to take photos of then New Mexico, Arizona, and Nevada. Now I know we could argue that point but please take note that I said “interest for me”. On our return I am going to stop much more often to take some of the shots I wanted to on the way out. I will to be fair do the same in the other states as well pending weather as it has been windy, snowy, and cold getting to Vegas.

Here is one of our first stops at a rest stop in Texas. I do not really post these pictures for the seen or realized beauty but more for the unseen or unrealized beauty of the view. I will try to remember to elaborate more later on but you will get my point later.


The above is Val and Lucy.



In one of my walk about’s I found a couple of what I would call ponds behind the rest stop.

I think in the next picture someone thinks of them as more then ponds. Notice the boat on land next to the dock.



This pond (picture below) to the right of the one with the boat looks more like a pond I would put a boat in as there is far less sea weed.


Our second stop was a bit windier and the clouds were moving in. The rest stops in Texas are rather nice and the facilities clean. In New Mexico we found most of the rest areas closed, in fact I do not think we even were able to stop at one.


Every State has its hazards.



This rest stop had a small pond as well.

Our next and last rest stop for the day was in a Town just short of Clarendon called Memphis. We have had trains going back and forth on the entire westerly trip on 287. Val shot these when we stopped. All along she was counting cars of the different trains, of which most were at or over 100 per train.





We drove on up to Clarendon and stayed at the Best Western which was a very nice place and the hot tub was outstanding, we both really enjoyed it and felt like rubber after we got out.
Next report is Day 2.