Day Before #19
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Next Day #21
Day 20: Roswell, NM to Tatum, NM
73 Miles: Wide Open Spaces On The Southern New Mexico Plains - February 20, 2008
| Nothingness. Spacious. Desolate. Those are a few words to describe the terrain of today's ride.
This may have been the most lonesome ride of the entire trip. :)
Outside of Roswell and east of the Pecos River, the scenery became extremely desolate.
About 18 miles in, I captured these two photos at the same spot facing east on Highway 380.
The road looked like it would travel forever into the horizon.
There was literally nothing around!
|
Above: A striking view of emptiness in Chavez County, New Mexico.
(Looking north from Highway 380)
| I leaned the bike against a sign once or twice, and walked over
to capture the view of the plains. I did my best to capture the essence of the
scenery, but let's just say the topography did not cooperate in providing depth and helpful composition. ;)
|
| An abandoned roadside building. |
Above: The wide open sky in Lea County, New Mexico. The sky appeared much more spectacular in person.
| At the 48-mile mark, I reached a "dot on the map" known as Caprock,
New Mexico. (Terming it a "town" just does not seem right.) The vicinity had just
a few ranches and a roadside home with a front room that served as a cafe.
I sat down outside and spoke with a rancher who inquired about the oddity of someone bicycling
this desolate stretch of highway. We talked about the chollas
(the "walking stick" variation) that grew naturally in the land,
and how some ranchers have them pulled out, cut up and pushed into
large piles in the fields, similar to raking and piling
autumn leaves.
Feeling a little goofy, I was
tempted to advocate from those amazing cacti and inform him I am the proud webmaster of
www.CactusLovers.com,
a pro-desert and pro-cactus web site. C'mon, sir! How
could anyone get rid of those beautiful chollas?! They rock the house!
I was not courageous enough to say what I was thinking. The rancher seemed a little serious and conservative, and I
did not want to come off as a tree hugger of any sort, so I kept my mouth shut from joking around.
I already had my long, naturally curly hair flowing and felt out of place as
it was bicycling in ranching country. :p)
Ah well, I feasted on a large beef burrito in Tatum in the afternoon,
and that beef very well could have come from these very ranches! ;)
|
Above: An example of a cattle ranch sign in Caprock, New Mexico.
| There was one peculiarity during the ride. I continued noticing
black decorative signs of a particular genre of art on local ranches.
I saw one close to Roswell, then a few more ... then more and more as I rode closer to Tatum.
|
Tatum, New Mexico
I arrived in the small town of Tatum at the 73 mile mark.
I washed up in my motel room, walked along the main road and continued to notice
these artistic black metal signs all over the place!
I soon realized Tatum is the home of Westcraft Metal Arts,
an artistic metal company that ships their creative work all
over the world! I walked along their property and browsed the inside of the store. Their web site is
www.westcraft.com.
| New Mexico Sunset
Photos Above: My two best photos of the sunset from Tatum in southeast New Mexico.
|
I look back at my short visit to Tatum with gladness.
That afternoon, I caught up on the Internet at the town library and the temperature reached the upper 70's!
The blue skies and sun's rays warmed my spirit and took away any focus I had on soreness or tiredness.
I felt great inside and closed the evening watching a very pretty sunset. I was just 15 miles from the Texas
state line and looked forward to seeing friends in west Texas on Friday.
In the past five days, I rode a total of 354 miles, and I would go another 63 miles tomorrow.
417 miles in six days was my all-time best for a six day period. I was very proud of myself.
Now this was what I envisioned during the planning stages.
I was tearing it up! As I described earlier, I wrestled
with the balance of taking my time versus going fast and hard.
In Tatum, my attitude relished on the latter and it felt fantastic!
I am convinced one has to have this mentality at some junctures to make it across the country.
I felt humble and ready for anything, but the
petty problems and snags I faced in California
(broken derailer), Arizona
(stolen bike; looped chain) and west
New Mexico (snow day) felt like they happened a long time ago. The physical distance definitely helped!
|
Day Before #19
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