So I left Marathon this morning and headed west to Alpine where I turned north and headed towards the McDonald Observatory near the town of Fort Davis.
on the run-in to Fort Davis
The McDonald Observatory is one of the world's leading astronomical research facilities.....lots of professional stargazers!!
You can see some of the Observatory on top of the hill.
made it up that hill......
....well almost!
I leave the observatory and continue north along the 118, a narrow country road...it would have been nice if they warned you about cattle-grids in the road.....especially on bends! It didn't take me long to find out the reason for the cattle-grids......
...just like home!!
Sadly, I am leaving Texas and heading into New Mexico. I head for Carlsbad and along the way are the Carlsbad Caverns......and I decide to check them out. I must admit my heart sank a little when a Park Ranger tells me that there is an hours hike to the bottom of the caverns......so off I go and 40 minutes later I hit one of the main rooms and rather than continue for another 1.2 miles to the main display of stalagmites and stalagtites I head for the elevators.....I'm 75 stories down and the elevators travel at 9mph (must admit I found the elevators more interesting than the limestone!)
I continue north through Carlsbad and onto Roswell....(yes, Roswell...home of aliens and sorts of weird stuff) and I have my first emergency stop! I'm struggling to see in the evening sun and a woman pulls out in front of me so I lock up the front wheel and it starts to slide out from under me......thankfully I was only doing 30 - 35mph and managed to release the brake and keep going.......she waves a hand of apology but never even looked in my direction! I must say that the driving in New Mexico has been diabolical so far!
I then had a young deer bouncing across the road in front of me as the daylight faded......think he was more worried than I was.......I was more concerned where his mum might be coming from!
I am in Alamogordo (I really struggle to say that one) tonight......the bike is booked in to a local dealer for its 12,000 mile service tomorrow and the dealer in Florida should have sent my proper registration plate to the dealer here too.
You had better watch out for Hot Dogs and Jumping Frogs if you get anywhere near Albuquerque ;) Terrible I know but would you expect any more from me. This baby is frying my brains....she gets blamed for an awful lot you know the poor little thing.
ReplyDeleteHave Fun
Ruth
xxx