Texas Trip 2011

Trip time again!

We are both incredibly broke this year and I couldn’t afford to do another month on the road again so instead we decided to meet up with the CC&D crowd once again at the Texas Meet and Greet and then just stay exploring Texas for another week and relive a bit of my childhood by visiting places my Grandpa used to take me every summer and that Cece had never been.

First day:   We have to get to Texas.  I of course didn’t think to take any pictures of this since I’ve been this way many times before and frankly Eastern New Mexico and West Texas is about the most boringest, soul sucking riding imaginable.  Its a wasteland of nothingness with no curves or hills.  After half a day of this you begin to really look forward to seeing the next heard of cows or windmill for some scenery, like I said it’s bad.

That is until you get to Artesia NM or east of Roswell the way we went and start getting into big oil country where now besides the flat boringness you have noxious fumes, poisonous hydrogen sulfide gas, extreme heat and blowing sand to go with it.  West Texas is truly miserable on the back of a motorcycle.    I used to live and work out here in the oil fields and it doesnt take long before your body adapts and you cant smell how awful it is here but after being in the crisp fresh mountain air for a decade riding through the gas fumes now is nearly vomit inducing.

A few pics between Vaughn and Roswell from previous rides:

We stayed with my friend Lalo and we were somehow roped into going to a family reunion across town when we got there.  They have a giant homemade grill made out of  a large pipe with holes cut in the bottom for oxygen and expanded metal across the top.  You can really cook a lot of food at a time on one of these bad boys and they had it loaded up.   They were doing some family games and activities while we waited and despite my protests I somehow ended up getting pulled into them.     I’ve found out that I’m now one of the worst hula-hoopers of all time, I think I may have made it 1/2 a turn one time as my best attempt.   I’m blaming it on the terrible exhausting riding before hand as I used to be good way back in elementary class,  no its not old age I refuse to accept that!

I did win a picture frame as a prize for licking a Big Red gum wrapper and holding it pressed to my forehead the longest though.  Laughing your ass off at everyone else really helps in self torture activities like this.    There were many hilarious new stories at Lalo’s expense, like how hes no longer allowed to borrow the in-laws mower after snapping the pull string and breaking it while trying to start it, and a good time had by all.

Of course I was tired and didn’t get any pics of the family reunion or Lalo and his family this day either, heres an old one just a few months before a lady doing 60 through a residential neighborhood blew through a stopsign and broadsided him on that bike.  When they brought him to the hospital the Doctors told his wife that he wouldn’t make it but they didn’t realize that he is one tough and deturmined dude.  When he lasted through the night they said he’d never walk again and he very quickly proved them wrong again and 7 or 8 months of rehab later he was back at work.