Southwest Trip

imported post

The mission was to ride Hwy 191 from Springerville, Arizona South to I-10 then go East to Big Bend and the Hill Country of Texas. However, we were not able to explore any of the intended routes in Texas. My Harley riding buddy began to have someissues that required him to return home early. So we rode too much Interstate and covered a lot of ground in 6 days.

We experienced some pretty diverse weather, which was not a bad thing.But itwould have been nice if the weather guessers could have gotten close to predicting it.

The first two days out, it was supposed to be sunny and in the 60's. The first day was 52 and cloudy. The second was misting rain with a steady temp in the low 40's. On the way back the forecast called for temps in the 80's across southern Texas on I-10 and I-20. Well, they got that wrong to ... it was 95 most of the way. We stopped in Big Spring around 5:30 with a temp of 93.

But it was a good trip ... we were out riding ...

We had one mechanical issue during the entire trip. The Harley guy pulled to the side ... he said, the engine did not sound right. He was not sure what the issue was ... but was afraid it might be something major. So there we sit on I-10 in New Mexico at 4:30 p.m. wondering if the bike would have to be towed andif so where to. While he was on the phone a rough looking guy on an old Harley pulled up.His bike looked like it was being held together with bailing wire. He diagnosed the problem as an exhaust leak where the pipe wascoming lose from the engine. He made a quick trip back to the town we had just passed and came backwith the correct size nuts to put the pipe back in place. After a couple of hours on the side of the road we were back in business. You just never know what that angel that gets you out of trouble will look like.

Bob