Day 04 - Enid to Albuquerque, NM

Our day started with a bang—of the impressive thunderstorm variety in the middle of the night! Oklahoma storms are wicked loud. Not much rain or wind, fortunately for the Wing’s safety. We wanted to get an early start this morning since today was going to be a long 550 mile day. Rob was surprised to find rain when he went to prep and uncover the bike. Contrary to the weather forecast we heard last night, our day was going to start out wet. A quick look at the weather radar indicated that we had more than an hour of rain to look forward to.

We slipped on our weather gear and were on the road about 7:30am. The rain fell on us (heavily at times) for the first hour or so and the roads remained wet and the clouds low.

We came around a bend and suddenly there were red rock formations, looking very eerie in the fog.

Unfortunately, that red soil was also all over the road through the construction zone we rode through in the damp conditions. The silver Goldwing now has a decidedly red tinge to it. Michele says it is "flat out brown and gross".

As we motored along, we slowed only for the small towns along our route, each with its own character.

We made our first rest stop near Canadian, Texas.

The temps were still in the upper 60s and there were a few spots of rain, so we left the rain gear on and continued on to Amarillo, TX. In Amarillo, the temps were in the mid 70s and the clouds had parted allowing quite a bit of sun to shine through. The Texas landscape had fewer trees and big blue skies.

By the time we arrived in Amarillo Michele was "starving". As luck would have it, Amarillo is home to the Big Texan, "home to the world famous 72oz steak".

Anyone that can eat it in one hour can have it for free! Hope you're really hungry!

The two of us together couldn't eat that entire 72oz steak in a week let alone an hour. So we "moseyed" on by and stopped at a Chick-fil-a and shared a chicken wrap instead....I'm not sure if Michele actually finished her half of the chicken wrap.

After lunch, it was a short 70 or so miles to New Mexico. Michele was thrilled to cross into New Mexico, another new state for her.

We pushed on to Santa Rosa, NM where we took another short break before making the final 120 miles into Albuquerque.  

Rob was approached by a scam artist (his interpretation) asking for gas money. Being perpetually skeptical, he was quick so say “no”. Meanwhile, a trio of young girls eyed Michele in the ladies restroom in her biker gear as if she were an alien (we were in NM after all). While everyone else is donned in summer attire, we perhaps looks a bit out of place.

We arrived at our B&B at 5pm to enjoy the solitude of our lovely (Michele's words) purple room. Tomorrow we finally enter Colorado!