Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire On the road again.

To get everyone caught up.....

Rolled into Lamesa late, stayed in a motel. The next morning I got on Google maps and surveyed possible routes, ate and finally left town headed west at about 1130. No biggie, 40 miles to Seminole, 70 miles to hatch New Mexico, doable in a day .

But holy crap getting up onto the High Plains I was finally catching some altitude, and not even big altitude, maybe a little over 3000 feet. Sunlight more intense humidity way low, The first time I encountered a condition I’ll call parching. Dry mouth dry throat moments after drinking water, I expect it to be hot but it was friggin hot. Three hours into it I came by a rare stand of trees by the roadside I took a 30 minute nap, that helped.

Rolled into Seminole at last about five, this place is like the Stepford wives except with Mennonites. Found at the Walmart it has the same kind of cheap tubes that I had been using but I picked up replacements.

I still had two hours left to make a run for the Stateline but I was whupped. Checked into a motel to think and take stock.

I’m thinking if I go the way I’m going into central New Mexico and then north through Colorado I’m going to get bogged down in the hills, altitude and heat. Doesn’t help that if I head for Artesia NM I’ll be facing directly into a stout west wind both days I can get transportation home from anywhere on this route but I really want to get up north and I really want to go through Yellowstone.

This is my last chance to hang a left here and head north up the plains instead. Lubbock is just 80 miles in two days away but I would hit there on July 4 and lose yet another day waiting for the bike stores to open. Amarillo is two hundred miles away, long enough for me to order stuff and have it there when I arrive.

Going the Plains route I could hit Bent’s Fort on the Arkansas which is of interest to me, avoid the cities and head up to Colorado planes to Fort Laramie and then on into Wyoming . I’d still be facing a 9000 foot pass getting into the southside of Yellowstone but that would be hundreds of miles north of here with less sun and less heat.

Gotta decide today, in the meantime I’m gonna drop by the Post Office to mail home some tools, spare parts and extra clothes, that will free up a little bit of space and a smidgen of weight.

This is how I’m dressed, like a gay roofer. That single layer of nylon works real good in the sun and heat when it’s humid, but dries too quick up here, I have heard Cotton is the way to go. Gonna look for a cotton shirt today.




Little House on the High Plains.



...and a rest spot in the shade....



387 miles so far.