Amarillo By Late Afternoon

Here we go again. Tomorrow, I meet up with Dan in Oklahoma City and we begin the next segment of our Route 66 journey from OKC to Amarillo. I have spent the past 3 days driving almost 2000 miles in the van - without incident! - to get to Amarillo this afternoon. I have parked the van at the airport, picked up a rental and will drive to OKC. When we get back here next week, we’ll put both bikes in the van. This is only the first leg of another classic Nolen/Scott road trip. After we finish our ride, I’ll take Dan back to his place in Springfield, Illinois (by way of St Louis where I’ll pick up my new Ping G430 driver from Dan’s PGA teaching pro brother-in-law). Then I’m on to Nashville to meet Kelly for her Nashville marathon next Saturday. I’ve lost count but I think this will be #16 for her. After that, we’ll cram a few National Parks in (Mammoth Cave, Great Smoky Mountains, Congaree and New River Gorge) with some hiking, canoeing and whitewater rafting. A quick stop in Columbus to visit a high school friend and then up to Ann Arbor for our niece’s graduation. No Van Go will easily have another 6,000 miles on it before we get home.

Since we haven’t actually done any riding yet, let me briefly describe the 3-day journey down here. I know I’ve said that you don’t see as much in the car as you do on the bike, but I can say with a very high degree of certainty that had i tried this route on the bike, I’d be dead. Not from a crash or some other accident, but from a complete lack of food and water. When we drive, we try very hard to stay off the interstates and take back roads that we’ve never been on before. The first 100 miles or so, we’re on I-84, but when I got off that road in Biggs Junction, I didn’t pass through a town with more than 10,000 people until I got here, and there were only 4 towns with more than 5,000 and only 7 more with over 1,000. I would guess that there are twice as many people in the ‘Couv as there are in EVERY town I went through, combined. On Day 1, I had stretches of 90, 66, 120 and 84 miles with no services - and no shade. On Day 2, I had stretches of 87, 78, 89 and 109 (on the interstate!) with no services - and no shade. Today, wasn’t as bad, with 96, 84 and 83 mile stretches. There was plenty of shade on the first half, and plenty of snow to boot. Fortunately, it wasn’t falling, it was just piled up on the side of the road.

I feel like I’ve earned the right to pass judgment on the quality of scenery in this country, having seen much of it on the bike and much more on our various road trips. I must say, beyond any doubt, Utah has the most spectacular scenery throughout the entire state. Even the ugly parts of Utah are cool. New Mexico is also spectacular, but alas, as soon as you get east of I-25, you see nothing, and for me, too much of the state falls into that category for it to compare. Colorado is also spectacular - see comment on I-25 above. Nevada surprised me this time. It’s early enough in the year that there was more green than I’m used to seeing there. But still, it’s gold mines and dirt, with a few snow capped piles of dirt. Eastern Oregon was very pretty as well, but it just didn’t quite measure up.

There was one major highlight to the drive, but it had nothing to do with the scenery. I spent last night in Bloomfield, New Mexico with my van parked in the gravel church parking lot next to my friend Steve’s house. Many of you might remember Steve as the person who saw me with my flat tire outside the McD’s in Aztec, New Mexico and spent the next day driving me all around looking for spare tubes. I realized that if I pushed it yesterday, I could get all the way to Aztec, so I reached out to Steve and we met for dinner with his 3 boys 13, 15 and 16, where else but the McD’s. We spent an hour or so just catching up. As I hadn’t found a place to park the van for the night, he came through again, called his friends at the church and they let me stay in their lot. I told him I’d see him next time I’m in town, whenever that might be. It will be worth the trip.

See what I mean? This is either eastern New Mexico or the Texas Panhandle. Same thing.

Steve and his boys. I think it’s Mark, Matthew and Andrew from left to right with Steve 2nd from left.