Austin

I made it. For awhile there the roadtrip seemed never-ending! Got into Austin last night.

While in New Mexico, I left my bike in the hotel parking lot while a friend and I went to Roswell to see the alleged space aliens then onto Carlsbad Caverns. It was a really nice day and the cavern was huge! It's the largest one I've been in although I think the cavern near Georgetown, Texas has been the nicest one as far as seeing everything.

I left Ruidoso, New Mexico at 7AM with frost all over my bike. I had to get out my hand warmer inserts for my hands. I'm sure glad I brought those along! I kept hearing a strange noise and couldn't figure out what it was. I stopped to check out my bike and my breaks seemed a little more loose than normal but I couldn't find anything wrong and kept on riding.

Did you know the speed limit on Interstate 10, is 80 mph? Wow, I didn't know that and speed demon that I am of course, couldn't go just 80... so all I can say is my bike can go fast. But going that fast burns more fuel. Between Fort Stockton and Ozona, there isn't anything except scenery. It's about a 100 mile stretch of nothingness. Usually, my tank can take me 120 miles and I still have about 1/8 of a tank left. I was past the red and probably putting around on the gas fumes. My little mantra was keep going, keep going, keep going, come on keep going (because I don't want to be pushing this chunk of metal up and down all these hills!) I saw the signs for Ozona - 47 miles, 35 miles, 17, miles, 12 miles, 15 miles - what?! It said 12 miles 2 miles ago and now Ozona was 15 miles away? Craziness! I finally made it to the Ozona exit and the gas station was still 3 miles away. Luckily, I made it without having to push!

I found out what that noise was. Seems like every so many hours, I'll have to re-pack/ tighten my bags and when I went adjust them, I found my tire ripped. Yeah, the brand new rear tire I got while in LA. I'm assuming the extra luggage weight and the bumpy road was working my shocks. My seat and sissy bar (luggage rack in the back) are held in place by a screw and when I rode over the bumps I think the screw came in contact with the tire making a nice tear the whole circumference. I was just hoping my tire wouldn't split in half and that I could make it to Austin since I was still 8 hours away. And that became my new mantra... let's get to Austin, let's get to Austin.

Austin, here I am! I think I'm going to go out exploring. When I lived in Texas before, I hungout mostly in North Austin so all this South Austin area is all new territory.