Peggrinder

Crawfish for dinner, this is the kids size….

Double tall cappuccino $3.45, NOAA app downloaded to my iPhone $1.99, seeing how far this morning fog extends – priceless….

Workmanlike is what today would be called. We ran before the big winter storm approaching from the west and made it to Midland Texas from Las Cruces, NM. We stopped running for just long enough to take a quick return tour of the White Sands National monument along the way.

Pretty much the whole day was spent crabbing into a strong wind on our beam and trying to stay in our lane while riding though the sprawling and largely forgettable oil fields of New Mexico and West Texas.

I’ve been on the bike now for 2 days getting to Phoenix, with an overnight stop in Santa Clarita. Left home in solid rain, standing water in some places along the road and busy roadways. I was keeping my concentration and focus in good shape until I passed the only other motorbike I saw in the morning, a Hells Angel on his harley was reading his cell phone on the freeway. Maybe I am over thinking this a little.

After stopping for gas, getting rid of my rain gear and watching a guy walk his lizard in the parking lot I made my way without further ado to Santa Clarita. The ride to Phoenix was in the warmth shedding layers like, well, a lizard along the way.

Two observations on the bike so far. First it is more subject to freeway wind shedding off vehicles like trucks and vans than my other motorbikes. At first I thought the bike had a miss or bad gas as it seemed to hesitate off and on, but finally figured out it was just the wind. Secondly, the fuel range is less than I thought. I am getting a bit less than 40 mpg, less than my Ducati. Seems a bit odd, but just something to get used to. I did a test to see how the reserve system worked and managed to get to 12 miles on the countdown reserve before pulling into a Chevron. Didn’t want to stand out in the heat of the desert waiting for gas. That is for lizards.

It always seems that there are a few too many things to get done in a bit too short a time when I’m getting ready to ride. I probably do this to myself, in this case by buying a new to me motorcycle 4 days ago. The logic is sound. I am going to ride across the southern US with friends and then leave the bike with Jen’s cousin in Kentucky for a while. Clearly I wouldn’t want to leave my Ducati to such a fate, thus the need for a stand in.

It’s a BMW R1200GS built in 2007 and very yellow. Not much is going to get done to it  just fresh fluids and a bit of cleaning up.  The windshield has been hit kind of hard with an ugly stick, but hopefully will do a very deflecting job with the wind.