313 miles- from Amarillo, TX to Taos, NM

Today was the last part of the wide open highway getting to where we wish to be. Most of today was in the panhandle of Texas, or in northeastern New Mexico. But once we crossed I-25 the ride became more interesting quickly.

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Shortly after we crossed I-25, we stopped at Cimarron, NM for a drink. While we were there, I talked with a group of Goldwing riders. One of these riders had a car tire on the back of his bike. I did not get a chance to talk with the rider of this bike, but some of his riding companions were telling us about this. Like his riding companions, I thought this man has lost his mind…after all, if car tires were good enough to place on a bike, bikes would come with car tires. As we left Cimarron, this is the first time we left the flat lands of Texas and Northeastern New Mexico where we headed through the ski resort towns of Eagle Nest and Angel Fire. For the third day in a row, we found a quick rain shower between these two towns. As we stopped to suit up for the rain, the rain cloud apparently passed by and left only wet roads for us, but we stayed dry.

About 5 PM MDT, we rolled into Taos, NM and proceeded to the Hacienda Inn, where we made a reservation before leaving Amarillo. We choose to reserve in advance because we could see online that almost all the hotels were completely booked. Once we arrived in Taos, we learned that the reason the hotels were booked was the Taos Solar Music Festival, which is the equivalent of a city wide party… fine, tonight’s entertainment was not a question. After stowing our gear in the hotel room, we headed to the historic district for dinner at the Alley Cantina. Food was great, we sat out on the patio, talked with many of the local residents who seek out this restaurant. While we were there eating and chatting an afternoon shower blew through. Many of the people moved inside, a few people huddled under the canopies to stay dry, and we got lucky, we had a big canopy covering us, so we stayed dry and seated.

Huddling out of the rain at the Alley Cantina in Taos, NM

Afterwards, we headed towards the Taos Casino, and played the slots for an hour or so, but after a day on the road, we were both itching for a shower.

As far as our accommodations at the Hacienda Inn, there are a few things to say. First, if you use the northern driveway, watch out for the massive speed bump, it is over a foot wide and about 5 inches tall. This means that as you go over it, your centerstand will hit it. Second, the majority of the parking lot is dirt/ gravel. Third, the building style resembles the pueblos in the area, which probably accounts for the lack of air conditioning. The highs in this area get to the mid-90′s, including while we were there, but the room was not hot… a fan would have been nice though. Fourth, and maybe the most important, I did not notice anything, but Dad commented that he thought bugs were running around the room during the night (he could hear them). All of this considered, I don’t think we will be staying there again.Tomorrow, we plan on starting the day with a trip to the Taos Pueblo, across the Rio Grande bridge, and then onto Colorado, and possibly a soak in the hot springs in Pagosa Springs, CO.

362 miles from Dad’s house near Dallas to Amarillo, TX

Ok, this road trip has officially begun. Just one problem though. Remember how I told you that the plan for this trip is to trailer both bikes as far as Taos, NM, and ride from there…and then to return to Taos to load the bikes back up and trailer them back to Texas. However, when we went to load the bikes, we discovered that we could not fit both my Goldwing and Dad’s Harley into the 6′ X 12′ enclosed trailer. Time for plan B.

Plan B ended up reducing some of the gear that we were going to take with us, and just ride the bikes for the entire journey.

The reason for the trailer was two-fold. First, the initial 700 miles or so was just straight flat open highway. Between two drivers, we could get to Taos in just a day without pushing to hard. The second was that Texas was still experiencing heavy rains and flooding. This was very obvious to us as we went through Wichita Falls and saw the Holiday Inn completely flooded (about 3 ft. deep at the front doors).

We experienced our only rain today as we went through Wichita Falls. After getting out of the rain, we stopped to put sunscreen on so we would not suffer a sunburn. Second lesson of the day: be careful when you choose which sunscreen to wear. Some cream style sunscreens will run as you sweat. In this case, the sunscreen that Dad was wearing ran into his eyes, making the afternoon ride towards the sun painful. I recommend Bullfrog sunscreen because it is waterproof and you won’t sweat it off.

Between the sunscreen incident and the late start trying to load both bikes into the trailer, we called it a day at the Best Western in Amarillo. The Best Western was clean, easily accessible (right of I-40), and reasonably priced. We also learned that Best Western gives a $5.00 discount for AAA members, so if you are a member, keep this in mind.

Tomorrow we are off to Taos, NM.

305 miles from my house east of Houston, TX to Dad’s house near Dallas, TX.As was expected, this is simply a travel day to meet up with Dad at his house. Here in Texas, we have been experiencing rain, flooding, and more rain. As to my nature, I was a bit late leaving my house, but only by an hour or so (I did work most of last night). On this leg of the journey, I took advantage of the navigation system on my Goldwing to help me avoid several rain storms.

When I left, the storms were spotty, which made the storm clouds easy to spot between the bursts of sunlight. Each time I would encounter a storm cloud, I would make a turn, either north or west, and depending upon which would adjust my route away from the rain and the navigation system kept adjusting the planned route to help me find Dallas (I do have a good knowledge of the back roads in this part os Texas, along with a traditional road map just in case). I only have had this bike for less than a month and this is my first GPS/navigation system. While I am not afraid of technology, I am not sure how much I can trust this system yet. However, this system led me the right way, and I ended up on I-45 headed toward Dallas.

Matter of fact, the only rain that I encountered today was a 15 mile stretch just south of Dallas…I am impressed on how well the Goldwing handles in the rain. On a similar note, I also discovered that no matter how much people tell me otherwise, you still get wet on the Goldwing, but as long as you are moving, you don’t get too wet. The rain was directly hitting me above my sunglasses and below my helmet, it stung a bit, but it continued to hit me in the same area, no matter how I adjusted the windshield. The indirect rain was splashing my boots, and on my hands, but the rest of me stayed relatively dry.

After buying my Goldwing earlier this month, it has been begging me for a road trip; at the very least, the 5 hour trip to see Dad in the Dallas area. However, Dad is needing to get away and a motorcycle bound road trip is in our future.

Over the last couple of years, Dad has gone to Taos, NM and Colorado for a summer trip to get out of the office. In both of those years, my sister joined him on hose trips. The first year the went white water rafting, and the second year, they towed his new bike and used it for daily excursion trips.

Our plan is to load both his Harley and my Goldwing into a 6 x 12 enclosed trailer, tow the bikes to Taos, then stay motorcycle bound bound for about a week, returning to Taos and towing the bikes back to the Dallas area were Dad calls home. There are two reasons to trailer the bikes: 800 miles of flat open highway looks the same through a windshield as it does on a bike; and second, it allows us to bring a little more of a variety of gear to suit the whims of our trip (after all, we have not planned much more than this step yet).

One of the first things that I was inadvertantly happy about when I bought my Goldwing, was the center stand. This makes it easier to check tire pressure, perform maintennance, wash the bike, load luggage, and more. But the first time I tried to get it on the stand, I was not successful. So the geek that I am, I looked online for tips or instructions how to perform this task. And I am going to share them with you.In an ideal world, you will always have a perfectly flat concrete spot when you are trying to do this. Asphalt is a good second choice, but if the weather is too hot, the asphalt gets soft, and your bike has the chance of sinking into the asphalt. Which makes this a good time to point out that the same thing can occur with your side stand. You also want as close to level as possible keeping in mind that once the bike is on the center stand, you have to control the 800+ lbs of bike when coming of the stand.

Getting the bike onto the center stand

1. Get on the left of the bike (kick stand side).
2. Place your left hand on the clutch side fro stability of you and the bike during this procedure.
3. With your right hand, firmly grab the seat handle.
   

   Seat handle

4. Put the heal of your right foot on the center stand foot pad.
5. Hold the bike level, you can feel both of the center stand feet make contact with the ground.
6. With a stiff right arm (locked straight elbow), push down with your right leg, an action similar to standing up.

If you perform this action right, the bike will just pop-up on the center stand.

To get the bike off the center stand

There are options for a “ride-off” center stand, but the factory one does not have this option. When the bike is unloaded (little or nothing in the trunk or saddlebags), just lean back, and rapidly rock your body forward. The momentum of your body will rock the bike off the center stand. Now you see why level ground is important to park it on.However, if you are loaded for a road trip, you’ll have 40+ lbs of road gear packed well behind the center point of the back, which means you may have to try this maneuver several times before the bike is back on two wheels.