4/2/2023
I slept right though my alarm this morning because I couldn't fall asleep last night. I was probably up until 1am. However, I got out of bed at 7am, made coffee and breakfast, finished the lil last minute packing stuff, and was on the road by 9am and arrived in El Paso at 5pm MDT.
The drive down I-10 might be boring in a car, but man it's intense on a motorcycle in constant heavy winds. I believe for most of the ride I had 25 mph sustained winds and gusts of 40-50 mph. I probably spent about 1/3 of the ride fully tucked, which is to say my chest against my gas tank and my head as low to the windscreen as possible, just for a semblance of quiet, despite my earplugs.
The craziest thing to happen today was just west of Junction (where I should've stopped for gas and didn't). I started feeling like I was in a Dyna death wobble, which is crazy if you watch a video of it. Poor Harley bros. So I pulled over because I thought one of my brand new tires was going flat, but no. I guess several people have driven that section of I-10 on bare rims with flat tires, ooooorrrrr the state or county grooved the asphalt unevenly for some strange reason, and it really is. unpleasant on a motorcycle.
The transition from Texas Hill Country to Texas desert is somewhat subtle, and even here in El Paso it looks like the Hill Country without the trees. Oaks and large Cedars gradually give way to small Mesquite and Cedars, and it really starts to flatten out once you get West of Ozona, with lil hills and Texas style buttes.
Honestly there's really not a whole lot to report for today. I mean, the craziest winds were on the long stretch between Balmorhea and Van Horn, and the one thing I really noticed today (because I really hadn't done a long highway stretch like this on a decent bike) was how much the geology really does affect the wind currents on a bike. The wind was coming out of the NNW for a lot of the day, which is why it was so loud to me, but when I'd go between pass walls (where they'd blasted out sections of hills long ago to pave I-10) I could feel the wind coming off the opposite or South wall, opposite the direction from which it had been coming. There were also a lot of interesting gusts coming between, around, and over all kinds of other lil hills, near and far.
All in all I'm happy with my progress for today, and the rest of my evening will be spent eating, doing some yoga, checking several forecasts around NM, AZ, and CA, and reading. I can honestly say that I feel I could do an Iron Butt Challenge (1000 miles in 24 hours), but I probably wouldn't try that without a homey on the road next to me.
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