UTAH TO COLORADO

Y'know, this is really weird. One day its perfect, next day its crap. Have I been cursed because I killed a chinaman, or possibly an albatross, without realising it? I dont think so, to the best of my recollection. After a near perfect ride thru the splendour of southern Utah, I finished up at Monticello. From there I planned to ride down thru Monument Valley, then up thru Four Corners, to Cortez, Colorado, ticking a few boxes on the Bucket List as I went. Fate would determine otherwise. For the record, I headed south and after 20 miles or so, I decided that the weather was not conducive to seeing Monument Valley. It was windy and dusty, and visibility was poor. I did a u-turn, thinking that instead, I would head north and have a look at Moab, as the weather may improve. The only improvement was that I had a tail wind, which lulled me into a false sense of security. By the time I got up to Moab, it was blowing a gale, and visibility was severely restricted. Never mind, I'll stay here if I can get a motel. Moab,on the Memorial Day weekend. Surely you jest? After a couple of rejections, and an offer of a fleapit for a very unreasonable $180 a night, I thought ok, I'll go back to Monticello.

The fact that I had already pre-booked and paid for a room in Cortez was a moot point. There was no way I could get that far in these conditions. The ride back to Monticello was hell on earth. It was worse than the hammering I got when I first hit Arizona  a few days previously, which I did  not think was even possible. Twice I was just blown across double lines in a split second, into the path of oncoming traffic, and at one point, when I felt the front wheel lift off the ground, my life flashed before my eyes (of course, I'm getting used to that by now!). I was the most relieved guy on the planet when I finally got back to Monticello. I had just ridden about 160 miles in appalling conditions only to end up back where I started from. So much for meticulous planning. Monticello was populated by about 50 bikers all desperately trying to secure a room. The guy in front of me on the line got the last room in town. What happens on tour stays on tour, but suffice to say, we ended up sharing a room. Room, I said. Not since I shared a smallish double bed in a BnB with Cyril the Squirrel at the TT Races on the Isle of Man in 1977, have I had such an unnerving nights sleep, and let's just leave it at that. Oops, too much information.

This was the road into Moab, before the weather turned to crap! After that, I was too busy trying to live to get the camera out again.
So, by next morning the wind had gone and I headed off into Colorado. And it was cold. How cold? Well, this cold. As soon as the bore water hit the ground, it froze.

I swear, it was so cold that the pawnbrokers had their signs covered up. But I pushed on through to a nice little town called Pagosa Springs, with the intention of deliberately seeking out places where nobody else would even think of going, just so I could get accommodation. But this is America, every place is crowded. Nevertheless, the next day I rode through some of the most pristine, picture postcard perfect countryside it has been my good fortune ever to see. Mountains with snow covered peaks, crystal clear streams, spectacular views, beautiful farmhouses, twisty roads as smooth as a baby's bum, the whole bit. And it was too bloody cold to stop and get the camera out, so bad luck.

As I pushed on towards Gunnison, I went up through a pass about 11,000 ft high, and it got even colder, and I saw the first bit of snow by the roadside. The road was a bit bumpy, but nonetheless a pretty exciting ride. I even saw quite a few guys on bicycles out on the road, out in the middle of nowhere.  Obviously not scared of bears. I left them in their private world of pain as I blasted past and scraped the pegs on some beautiful sets of twisties.

Next day, with the winter linings hauled out of the panniers for the first time, I headed up through Breckenridge, which is actually the place where the final sequences of the movie Dumb and Dumber was filmed, purporting to be Aspen in the movie. Well, I got a few chuckles out of it as I went through. Much further on through Rocky Mountain National Park, it just kept getting higher, 12,000 ft this time, and colder. But I finally saw a moose! Even though it didn't have antlers.

And did I mention it was cold? That white stuff is snow, people. (Grimes, seeing as you are in Moscow, I don't expect you to be the least bit impressed by this meagre bit of atmospheric dandruff.) Everybody else, empathise.

And have a look at that back tyre! Lucky I am now in Loveland, CO (that's the name of the town, not some knock shop), where the bike gets a service, and a new set of tyres, and I get to take it easy in a nice warm bar with a blazing log fire for a while. With a glass or two of 08 Peter Lehmann Barossa shiraz, and at Aussie prices again too. The world is evidently shrinking, but from where I'm sitting, it still looks like it goes on forever.

Thanks Peter, you're a champion. Christ, what is it like here in Winter?

SOUTHERN UTAH

Yesterday I think I must have been blessed. After the blustery, dusty, grit in the teeth ride of the day before, it was nigh on perfect. After a late departure from Kanab, I went through Zion, Bryce and Capitol Reef National Parks and still covered about 300 miles. Today I continued through the Canyonlands NP, with even more spectacular scenery, but sadly, the wind had returned. What should have been a cloudless, blue sky was a murky brown due to the dust. The last two days was true sensory overload, and it reminded me of the folly of dragging out the superlatives too early. Sure I enjoyed the ride along the Rio Grande in Texas, and yes its worth doing. I imagine I am yet to see some even more spectacular country on this trip, but it will be a hard act to follow after yesterday and today. We all seem to overuse superlatives these days. Even a sandwich can be described as "Awesome", so its a bit hard to find the right words to describe the south of Utah. I'm glad I bought the $80 pass to the National Parks at the Grand Canyon, it paid for itself already yesterday. And yet again, I rattled off umpteen photos, and again they simply fail to capture the totality of what the eyes can see. But I'll tack a few in here anyway.

Zion NP is more than just a few rocks, you get to weave in close amongst these massive, vertical slabs of rock, looking at the coloured layers and observing the lifting, faulting, the erosion and then more of the same over and over. How long all these processes took to produce the forms we see today just plays with your head.

Bryce is different, with lots of sandstone eroded into weird shapes, on a very large scale, and many splendid vistas.

Capitol Reef NP as seen from State 24 was awesome, with mile after mile of massive red cliffs towering above the road, and a lot of evidence that every so often, really big bits break off !

But my favourite was Canyonlands NP. The sheer scale of these spectacular, isolated and rugged formations along both sides of the road was just astounding. Along State 95, I only had a mere glimpse of the hundreds of miles of red rock escarpment, containing Lake Powell. These were taken near Hite. The only thing missing was a coyote and a road runner!

The little white blob on the river is the town of Hite.

The big loop I am taking through this region is one of the Bear's rides from ARR magazine, and again he has nailed it. Quite apart from the sheer splendour of the Parks, its a damn fine bike ride as well, following the State 12 from Bryce thru Escalante and Boulder. After the first 2 parks, it was getting on a bit and I still had 170 miles to get to my hotel, so I had to hustle. The road between Boulder and Torrey took me up over a mountain range cresting at about 8000 ft and down the other side. There was very little wind and not much traffic, and lucky for me, no cops. I really do like the F650 when you wring its neck in the mid range, and the way it fires you out of the corners, it a very willing machine, and has a great soundtrack. Altho with all that gear on the back, I had to watch it a bit. One thing I have noticed around here is the habit of sealing cracks in the road by pouring in liquid bitumen. It leaves a smooth, convex line in the road, at all sorts of weird angles. All Road Authorities do it, but I think its a bit overdone here. Apart from the psychedelic effect on the eyes, its slippery, especially in the corners. While you try to keep away from it as much as possible its inevitable, and the number of times I felt the front wheel slip off this stuff, on a dry road, is unsettling. Perhaps if those goddam biker idiots stuck to the speed limit, there wouldn't be a problem. Guilty as charged, Your Honour. But its still some of the best riding I've ever had.

ARIZONA TO UTAH

After the Expo at Mormon Lake, I headed up to the Grand Canyon for a quick look. It had changed significantly since Carolyn and I were last here in 1985. For a start, I thought it looked deeper! Its a pretty impressive hole in the ground which ever way you look at it. Moving right along, I headed out to the Vermillion Cliffs along Alt US 89. These were also impressive, as was the Navajo Bridges over the Colorado River.

The Vermillion Cliffs

 One of the Navajo Bridges

The Colorado River, downstream of Lake Powell, on its way into the Grand Canyon.

On the way to this area, I had passed a number of Navaho settlements. These all looked pretty dismal, with bits and pieces missing from the buildings, wrecked cars and other piles of junk strewn all over the place, not the slightest trace of any landscaping or care. Along the roadside there were numerous stalls selling Indian trinkets to the traveling public. Well, they might have had a chance if there was anyone in them. Most were unattended. This appeared to be the only sign of economic activity in this very large area. There was hardly any indication of agriculture or ranching, and all told painted a very bleak looking picture.

On a brighter note, today's ride was again in blustery conditions, strong at times but well below the terror level of a few days ago. The sky was cloudless, but looked murky on the horizon due to the dust being stirred up.  Looking at all the weird rock formations in this area, the penny dropped. The wind is loaded with abrasive sand, and over millenia this has sculpted the relatively soft sandstone rock accordingly. That also means that wind is almost always present  to some extent around here, so I'm not expecting much change in the riding conditions. In fact, its a local joke that when the first Mormons reached this area in the 1800s, they stopped and waited for the wind to abate, and they are still here.

So I crossed the border into Utah and headed for my motel in the small town of Kanab. As soon as I entered the lobby, I was hit by a wonderful aroma of curry. What's the bet? Yep, sure enough, and I don't mean Navajo. Here's where it gets interesting. Just as I'm checking in, a usually simple process but one which Indians can unfailingly turn into an exquisite form of torture, especially if the booking is done online, some guy comes running into the lobby shouting "Dial 911!" This guy looked a bit like the elevator didn't go all the way to the top floor, if you get my drift, and it turns out he was the handyman, and was reporting a fire. I looked across the courtyard, and sure enough there was a growing plume of smoke coming from behind that side of the motel. As I listened to the frantic Indian lady trying to explain the situation to the Emergency services, and really botching it up, I thought "this should be good!" Nobody else was doing anything, so I walked across to look behind the building. A power line had come down in the wind, and was flapping around wildly. Clearly it was still live, as it was arcing with a big blue flash every time it hit anything, and it had set fire to the long dry grass and timber fence behind the building. Not a fire extinguisher to be seen, let alone one for electrical fires, and not a good idea to get a hose just at the moment.

About 4 minutes had passed since the 911 call when I heard sirens in the distance and the first on the scene was a cop. I thought it prudent to let the guy know that there was a live power line under all the smoke, but he ignored me and disappeared around the back of the building. OK pal, you sort it out then. I pulled up a chair outside the lobby and sat down to watch. The first fire engine went straight past. The second one drove in. Two more cop cars. No sign of anyone from the Electric authority. The first fire engine came back. By this stage, there are quite a few people clutching radios all darting around the back, and then running back into the courtyard. About 8 Indians are standing as far away as possible, waving their hands and wobbling their heads, and had almost unanimously agreed that something was, in fact, on fire. The smoke is getting really thick. The neighbours start coming in. Other guests start coming out. Traffic in the street stops. Still no Electric guy. A German guy from the room nearest the source comes over and sits down next to me, and tells me in broken English that he just checked in. I grab a drink from the Coke machine, and start contemplating alternative accommodation. Just as the Electric guy drives in.

Kanab, Utah. A cemetery with a view, right across the road from the hottest motel in town.

ARIZONA

Had a very nice run from Socorro to the Arizona border, passing through the quaintly named Pie Town. Unfortunately I was a bit early and the shops were closed. Pies I can understand, but the name of some of the other towns around here is more cryptic, such as Truth or Consequences. (?)

On the way, I also passed a VLA station, or Very Large Array radio telescope, probing space for signs of, well, anything. These umpteen individual dishes are set on rails, and can be repositioned at will, the principle being that the signals are combined to give the effect of having a much larger dish. It was quite deceptive in as much as when I first saw them they looked like mere mushrooms on the vast open plain, and as I peeled off the miles, they didn't seem to be getting any closer. Finally I reached the dishes that were nearest the road, and they are actually pretty massive, as I suspected they might be.

 THE TRUTH IS OUT THERE.

As soon as I hit the Arizona border, as if on cue, the scenery changed to the Old West, with red rocky outcrops, and I actually saw a few tumbleweeds rolling across the road. My musing didn't last long. I was about to get clobbered by the worst cross wind I have ever experienced in my entire riding lifetime. Even in Patagonia I never encountered wind of this strength, and although we were told we got off easy down there, I reckon it was very challenging. This was definitely worse. I felt that if I stopped, the bike would blow over, so I kept going. I was being blown around like a piece of paper, hanging off the bike and leaning into the wind like I was cornering hard, and more than once found myself just flicked back onto the edge of the bitumen as though someone picked me up and dropped me. I really though it was only a matter of time before I ended up crashing into the verge and doing serious damage. If we did get wind like this in Patagonia, I would still be in hospital, or worse.

By some miracle, I made it to civilisation in the form of a town called Show Low. I was advised that conditions were even worse on my planned route up through Winslow, and that the Intestate might be closed. It was too early to book into a motel, although that seemed the sensible thing to do, so I sought refuge in a burger joint to consider my options. There was a more southerly route along some backroads which would take me through hilly, forested areas which might provide some protection, so thats where I headed. Although still quite blustery, it worked, and I ended up having a pretty good ride up to Mormon Lake, just south of Flagstaff, and the site of the 3 day Overland Expo, where I had planned to meet Team Suzuki, my four fellow Ulyssians from Adelaide. Mormon Lake was a very large and flat depression in the earth that looked just like you would expect a lake to look, except in one major respect. It contained not a drop of water. Dry as a bone. Well, that figures, perhaps that's how it got the name in the first place.

The Expo was for adventure bikers and also for 4WD enthusiasts, and there were a lot of trade displays, a test track, riding school, and seminars and other presentations. It lived up to its promise, and was great fun. I was intrigued by some of the stuff in the 4WD area. Really, the kind of mechanical monsters on display were ludicrous in some cases. Talk about overdone, World War 3 maybe. Check some of this stuff. But everyone had fun, thats the main thing.

It was a veritable who's who in the adventure bikers department. Brian and Shirley Rix, of Two For The Road fame, Ken and Carol Duval, who are Horizons Unlimited legends. Touratech, Jesse Luggage, HappyTrails, Rawhide, were all there. Even a guy raising money to enter next years Dakar as a privateer.

But for me, the absolute highlight was meeting and talking to Ted Simon, author of Jupiter's Travels,and other titles. He spent 4 years riding on his own around the world in the early 1970's on a Triumph Tiger 100, and was the inspiration for a number of others to follow suit, including Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman to do their epic Long Way Round and later, Long Way Down adventures. A true adventure riding pioneer and a legend. And that's Brian Cullinan (aka Wombat, as if you couldn't tell) getting in on the act as well. Great stuff.

                         ME, TED and BRIAN



Our campsite and bike park, Mormon Lake.

                  
    Bjoerne and Sigrid Malessa from Adelaide, en route to South America, via Alaska of course.

THERE'S A NEW MEXICO ??

Yes there is, and that's where I am blogging to you from. Probably the one thing that most people think of when New Mexico is mentioned is the Manhattan Project and the first detonation of the atom bomb. This is probably still the only place in the US where you could detonate one and nobody would notice. Although I suspect CNN would figure it out eventually. There are a few places I can think of which would rank higher on the priority list for a nuke, but let's keep it nice. Again, I put in a lot of extra miles just to keep away from the Interstates today. This took me through some splendid desert landscapes, and well away from the trucks. I headed north from Van Horn on Texas 54, then west to El Paso on the US 180. There was really no getting away from El Paso, a place which I had been advised to avoid, or at least to drive straight through, for several reasons. It big, its ugly (even on the map, its ugly), and its a heavy scene crime wise, and a dangerous place. OK, I listened.  I just skirted a corner of the town on the bypasses. I was going to go via Carlsbad TX and Roswell NM to see if I could spot any real aliens, but I really needed to save some time, so I headed for El Paso anyway, then went straight up to Alamogordo, through to Carizozo and then across to Socorro. Here I decided I had had enough, as it got really windy, as well as smoky from some wildfires in Arizona. That still leaves me a big day to get to Flagstaff tomorrow, but I plan an early start.

Oddly enough, I vaguely remember a movie where somebody leaves town with the parting line of "Socorro Sucks!!" I can't remember too much that happens after that. Funny the stuff that sticks in your brain, well my brain anyway.

An interesting days riding today. It was actually cold for the first couple of hours, and I had to stop and change gloves, and rug up a bit. OK the vegetation is fairly ordinary, but there are usually some spectacular mountains in the background, the impact varying a little, depending on how the light just happens to strike them. Very reminiscent of the Flinders Ranges at home. Am I getting homesick or what? Anyway, back to work. Just by the by, I have seen some interesting roadkill lately. Lots of armadillos in Texas, and in the last couple of days, coyotes. One in particular had a whole flock of about 10 buzzards helping to recycle it. And they were really annoyed about me trying to ride right on past. I thought coyotes were a bit like dingos, you know, supposed to be too smart to get hit by a truck. Then again, Wile E Coyote was always getting belted by something, so maybe not.

So anyway, very little traffic until I got to the outskirts of El Paso, which did look really crappy from this direction. One thing that was impossible to miss was the Army base at Fort Bliss. Bliss? I didn't think it looked that good personally, but holey moley, what a size! I reckon it took me half an hour just to drive past the place. No sooner had I done that, than I was driving through their massive training area, this time being buzzed by Apache attack helicopters. They even stop the traffic at certain points so the convoys of humvees and trucks can cross the highway. Come to think of it, it does look a bit like Iraq around here. A bit further on there is a missile range, and after that,  yet another Air Force base, with a bombing range. And of course, then you hit another Border Security checkpoint, just to make sure you are not Mexican. Further up the road there is the White Sands National Monument, and further still, the site of the first detonation, although this is well off the road, and not accessible. Not that I wanted to get that close. Somehow, I don't think they care if the Mexicans sneak through this area, but not even Mexicans would be game to leave the roads around these parts.

Cariozozo and Socorro both look as though they are struggling a bit. But nonetheless even here in obsole-aville I did manage to find a 2007 Wolf Blass Yellow Label Shiraz Cabernet on the shelves of the local supermarket in Socorro. How civilized is that? If you are a grape, this is one of the nicest thing that can happen to you. This wondrous elixir is made about 40 miles from where I live, and it is sold cheaper here in New Mexico than I can buy it at home. How does that work?? I know life isn't fair, but this really sucks!

Which reminds me, one of the things I really enjoy about being in the US is visiting supermarkets. I get a real buzz from looking at all the stuff on the shelves that I've never heard of before. Half the time, I just try to work out what the hell it is. Some of it turns up at home eventually. F'rinstance, right here in Socorro, I was totally unaware that there are so many things you can do with chilli peppers and all the derivatives there from. But after my experience in Lockhart, I ain't going near any of them. And the number of weird things you can (or can't) buy for breakfast is totally outside my orbit, being a muesli guy, but hey, vive la difference. Rest assured I will talk at great length about obesity in a future diatribe. But right now gotta go, Wolfie is calling. Mmmmmm, lucky me.

LAST DAY IN TEXAS

Funny day today, I clocked up about 300 miles, but finished only about 90 miles from where I started. And I was never lost. The mail I had about the ride along the Rio Grande from Lajitas to Presidio said good things, and it proved to be right on the money. Australian Road Rider had a feature on it recently as part of a longer ride from Del Rio to El Paso. The most scenic ride in Texas, I think they said. Big call! So from Alpine, I headed about 80 miles due south on the Texas 118 to a place called Study Butte (been doing that for years, I have, female variety only of course). As I'm supposed to be in Flagstaff by the weekend, heading in the opposite direction was not really efficient, but too bad. When I neared the place, I was somewhat dismayed at the shantys, heaps of junk etc on the way in. It also looked like there were backyard mining operations happening, possibly for gemstones or minerals of some sort. So when I finally got to the place, it looked very much like Coober Pedy or Andamooka, with the same piles of whitish coloured dirt heaped up everywhere, and the same crappy looking, unregulated buildings that people make themselves out of anything they can find when they are allowed to do so. For American readers, lets just say it looked like a cross between an Indian Reservation and the place where Clark W. Griswold's cousin Eddie lives.

Pretty tacky stuff. So I wasn't impressed. Then I went a bit further on, and noted a new development, which was quite upmarket, and a complete surprise. OK. A bit further on, and I found a plaque which tells some of the story of the place. Turns out they used to mine an ore called cinnabar. From 1900 to about 19040 it was the biggest source of cinnabar in the US. What do they extract from cinnabar? Cinnamon, possibly? No, the answer is mercury, just about the most toxic non radioactive substance in the periodic table, that's what. And of course the EPA would have kept a tight watch on proceedings. Yeah, right. I had visions of Chernobyl.  This was turning out to be a bum steer. So I pushed on.

All of a sudden I got to the point where I could see the river, and the road began to climb. It was steep, twisty, tight, and a bit bumpy. Not a road for speeding on, but the views just kept getting better and better. At each turn one mind blowing vista was replaced with a better one. These were the parts Mother Nature had put in place, and that we humans hadn't yet buggered up. I grabbed what photos I could, because it wasn't an easy road to stop on, but I don't think they fully convey the sense of how spectacular a ride this is.

It is a harsh, isolated, largely empty and yet still spectacular landscape, and again, maybe the appeal might have been because its a bit like Australia in that sense, but it stacks up pretty well on its own, I thought. Clearly it is dry and arid, yet the effects of massive flows in the river are evident. It probably gets 30 years worth of rain in about a week, a few times a century. For now, the predominant vegetation was an evil looking thorn bush which would cut you to ribbons. Anyway, the bottom line is that I think this is a sensational ride, and well worth the effort to get here. And I suspect I was lucky with the weather, because it was a beautiful day. But stay in Alpine!

As I neared Presidio, I noted several places where there was a Border Security vehicle parked on a bluff, scouting the terrain for any Mexicans. I reckon if anyone can get through there, they deserve citizenship. Presidio was the kind of busted ass dump that might as well belong to Mexico. The photo below is as close as I got to the border crossing. Nevertheless, I imagine Chris Phillips was glad to arrive when he came through here, although I suspect the improvement was purely psychological for quite a while. There is a Subway here now Chris, but from the outside it just looks like a tin shed, so as to fit in, I guess.

A quick 60 mile trip north from here on US 67, which is about as close as I will get to Route 66, had me at another border security station just short of  Marfa. This time I had the passport in my pocket, and straight through, no drama. I then headed straight up to Fort Davis, an interesting town with historical importance, and picked up Texas 118 again. This proved to be an excellent ride of some 55 miles of very nice, fast twisties, up past the McDonald Observatory atop Mt Locke, and past Mt Black (elev 7550 ft), with nobody else in sight. Perfect! I then endured a session of Purgatory on the  I-10 W to Van Horn TX, another modern ghost town, it appears. Hope I still have a bike to ride in the morning! Tomorrow, I will cross into New Mexico, but I suspect it might not be too much better than the old one. But you never know, do you? An interesting day, with some spectacular scenery and great riding. And I nearly hit another deer. Those buggers are really hard to see.

I'M STILL IN YOU KNOW WHERE !

Lets start with a photo. This is merely a play on words, because there are lots of signs and bumper stickers around here that just say the first bit, but they leave out the littering reference. There are also lots of t shirts for sale with the caption, "We don't call 911", underneath a photo of a revolver. I just reckon Texas is OK.

I have just spent the last two days in a town called Leakey. With a name like that, there is a cheap one-liner everywhere you look. I know this is juvenile, but I can't stop myself.

Lucky they don't build boats or fix roofs. Apparently its supposed to be pronounced Lay-key, but I reckon if they didn't want people to call it Leakey then they should have spelled it differently. Enough said.

Not a lot happens in Leakey, but it is just far enough out of San Antonio and a few other large places for people, mainly bikers, to come to town for a weekend. There is some excellent riding to be had in the surrounding hills. In fact the Texas Hill country was a total surprise to me, I imagined Texas to be flat, dry, hot, dusty, etc. like in the westerns. That comes later. I stayed at a bikers only lodging, the D'Rose Inn, which was recommended to me. Its a great little spot, even though it was quiet and the weather wasn't great while I was there. But I did have some excellent rides in the area and met some very nice people. Bike people, what more do I need to say?

I had a very wet departure from Leakey, no pun intended, it was fairly belting down this morning. In fact it rained most of the night, and at one stage there was a thunderstorm that just about threw me out of bed, and it put the power out. Lucky for me, I have a stove and a torch, so I could make breakfast. So I headed out of the Hill Country to the moderately sized city of  Del Rio, on the Mexican border. Another Air Force base here, and I got buzzed by fighter jets (again) as I rode past the end of the runway, in the rain. Tell you what, there is so much air power on display in Texas its scary. Do they think Mexico is going to invade or what? Clearly the Mexicans favour the stealthy approach, rather than a massive armoured assault across the Rio Grande.

I became a victim of this security when I was stopped a few miles past Del Rio, at a permanent Border Inspection Station. Here, they were stopping all vehicles, checking the ID of all occupants, and letting the dogs have a sniff around for drugs or people concealed in the vehicle. Guys, why would anybody concealing drugs or people drive through as permanent inspection station on a US Highway that everyone knows about? More to the point, why did they ask for my passport? I was riding a US registered vehicle in the US, not entering the US at a border crossing. Really, I'm just dark because it took me 20 minutes of unpacking to find the bloody thing, seeing as I didn't reckon I'd be needing it again until Canada.  Its kind of amusing that Mexicans that live here are stopping other Mexicans that don't live here from trying to live here. Sometimes its really hard to work out what country I'm in!

Which reminds me. Just to change tack for a bit, I wouldn't mind a dollar for everyone of these I've seen since North Carolina, I could pay for my trip 10 times over at least.

 

Its a Baptist Church, with its typical pointy little steeple, and they are absolutely everywhere. Even really small towns can have several. I have been traveling through the Bible Belt alright, no doubt about that. Do we even have Baptists in Australia? It must be a well kept secret if we do. They appear to be the heavy duty type here, real dour killjoy Protestants, with their Work Ethic, and their dry counties. Have they got time to do anything except build churches and tell everyone else what to do? And I have never, ever trusted anybody with one of those dorky looking beards without a moustache! Us Micks reckon Work is the curse of the Drinking class, (thank you, Oscar Wilde) and we are too busy doing that and increasing the population to do or care about too much else. My mob didn't get a look in until I got back into the Hispanic demographic, but now we seem to be fighting back a bit.  OK, I think I've probably offended pretty much everyone by now.

Anyhoo, the thing that struck me today was that the countryside started to look familiar once I got West of the Pecos. There's a good book title if ever I heard one. At last I am in the wide open spaces again, for the first time since leaving home. Everywhere else has been so unbelievably, well, just populated. Its great, its exciting, but there are just people and roads and traffic and advertising signs and buildings everywhere. I guess 300 million people just take up a lot of room. Except here. After crossing the Pecos, via this here bridge,

the countryside started to take on a very familiar guise, in fact I could have sworn I was in Central Australia, with saltbush plains and a bit of  teatree thrown in now and again, with familiar colours against a backdrop of rounded hills with rock strata and protruding outcrops visible. Great riding conditions, nice and cool, no wind, hardly any traffic and hardly any people. I loved it. Am I anti-social or what?

Anyway, the bubble burst a bit when I pulled into a motel for the night in Alpine TX, which looks like a nice spot. There was an elderly couple in a huge pickup truck in the carpark, and the guy started chatting. Apparently he had come down to visit Big Bend National Park, on the border just south of here (which I will also visit tomorrow) and so far he and the missus were very disillusioned. "There's nothing here, just nothing at all", he lamented. And they live in Texas! "Yes", I replied, "isn't it great, looks just like Australia". So he thinks I'm crazy, and won't be coming on down. He didn't hear me when I said it doesn't all look like this, but by then it was too late. Oh well.

OK, one more thing. On the way into Leakey, I flashed past what I thought was a herd of cows in a paddock, and did a big double take. Look what I saw.

Only little ones, but I didn't expect to see these critters until Wyoming or thereabouts. A bit further on, I swear I saw some deer- like animals that weren't deer. They looked more like African antelopes, and indeed that's exactly what they were. So I thought that there were some true animal lovers around these parts, doing their bit for conservation of endangered species. These animals are in fact reared in extreme comfort, getting the best of care and attention lavished on them, right up till the moment they get shot by hunters who pay the ranchers for the privilege. At least that explains the number of gun shops and taxidermists around here. I make no judgement here, I merely state the facts. I enjoy a good kangaroo fillet myself, and so long as they don't shoot the last breeding pair of whatevers, its gotta be better than shooting each other. They could shoot a few more deer though. The bastards are everywhere, and I have had a couple jump out in front of me on the road. Don't they know I'm a goat killer??