Here's the plan. First, communicate with everyone that I'm just fine, and can stay warm and safe until Monday when the temps climb into the 40's. I can chat with everyone on Facebook. Everyone seems to have that and it's working. If and only if I lose power, I will check in on FB using my spot tracker. I will turn it on for ten minutes and it should post my location and a message that says I'm OK. I tested it and it works fine.
The forecast has changed a bit. Precipitation is no longer in the forecast for the region until later this afternoon. If the roads have dried and traffic is moving on the interstate by 10 today, I'm going to continue on. Fort Stockton is the next major town. It's 3 hours away. This will allow me to get through Fort Stockton, the next town before there's a real chance of sleet. Sonora Texas is 4 hours away and if I get there, I should be home free, just rain with temps well above freezing. I promise everyone that if there isn't a high probability of me doing this safely, I will stay put.
Here's what I woke up to this morning...
Well, Go/No go was scheduled for 11. I was a little late on the decision; but, the decision was GO! Here's the story.
At 8:30, things were looking a bit bleak. There wasn't much traffic moving on the interstate. Both, my motorcycle and the parking lot both frozen over; so, off to breakfast I went. When I got done, I could see traffic moving on the interstate and lots of truckers breaking camp and getting ready to forge ahead. Even though I couldn't move the bike on the ice, I decided I just couldn't live with all the icicles on it, so I went to work de-icing. About 45 minutes into it, I could hear water dripping off the roofs and the parking lot was no longer ice. Traffic was moving on the interstate and things were looking good. Then, a guy in a pickup pulled up next to me and we started chatting. In the course of conversation, he mentioned that he works for the road department and that the Interstate was shut down 30 miles to the East, due to a wreck. Can you think of a four letter word that begins with s and ends with t (I've been doing lots of crosswords on this trip.). I digress. Shit!
So, I decided to check the weather and traffic anyway, when the front desk called to tell me "Your time is up." I think that's Indian for it's checkout time. I said I'd be down in 10 minutes and the lady said $10 late checkout. What went through my head was "G_t th_ f___ o__ of here!;" but, with my standard diplomatic and statesman like behavior, I said I would be right down. Since it appeared I was staying I thought I'd just buy another night in the room.
When I arrived at the office, I nicely explained that the power was out for 4 hours last night, the room was cold and I wanted a discount on tonight's charge. Her English got worse and the conversation ended with me buying another night at this motel and calling her and her husband thieves. I'm sure she only understood the credit card swiping part of the conversation. It was only $50 and definitely not enough to get upset about. Don't get stuck in Sierra Blanca, it's the only place in town, they know it and don't care about anyone.
While I was in the office, I met Steve. Steve wrecked his Lexus last night and ended up at the motel. He was ticked because the phone in the room doesn't work, his cell phone has no reception and all his luggage is in his car, which was towed out of a ditch last night. I was totally empathizing with this guys misfortune. I asked if he needed to get word out to folks that he was alright and could help him if he could do it via email. He also got the $10 late checkout deal and just told the lady he would checkout now because he was unlikely to stay and he could survive the 32 degree air while he waited for a cab from El Paso (about an hour). Bro, grab your stuff and come down to 117.
While I was waiting for him to arrive to send his email, I started back at the weather/traffic thing. Weather was looking unreasonable; but, probably doable on a scale of completely unreasonable and not even possible to California Sunshine riding. Seening all the traffic move and the dripping ice had me itching to make it to Fort Stockton. I pulled up traffic, just as Steve walked in. He saw the traffic and I pointed to the red traffic jam on the map and he said that was 10 miles West of us. Errrr, what did you say...in my best Tim The Tool Man Taylor voice? He was sure it was West of us. I was going East. Send your email buddy; because I'm buggin' out. While Steve typed, I loaded up the bike and got geared up. Goodbyes and good lucks all around, and I was out the door. I dropped the key in the box and off I went.
The interstate was dry; like bone dry. P-a-r-t-y O-n!!! Then, I got to Van Horn, where traffic was coming to a stop. A Border Patrol agent was waiving at me to slow down. Hmm... this is exactly where the red traffic jam symbols were. It was then that I realized that Steve must have hit his head and was probably suffering the after effects. I shouldn't have listened. I was now 10 miles from the flea bag motel and 10 miles from Van Horn. The good news was that they had real hotels...if I could get there before the road froze over. About then, I see the Boarder Patrol guy coming up behind me with his lights on. He wasn't signaling for me to pull over, he was running a rolling road block so I wouldn't get creamed by the two semi's behind him. BRAVO. I gave him a friendly waive as he went by. That was awesome because at that particular moment in time, I happened to be thinking about what I would look like splattered on the grill of a truck just like either of those.
Traffic all of a sudden started moving again. I was only sitting for about 20 minutes. I turned off my Spot tracker at that time because I didn't want to worry anyone that I was down or something. I planned on taking the Van Horn exit and calling it quits, when again, the road turned dry and traffic parted. Time to keep going.
Long story longer, I ended up in Balmorhea Texas, about 31 miles West of Fort Stockton, my intended destination. I'm OK with that. It was 4 when I left the interstate and I was afraid that when daylight was over, the roads would freeze. As it was, the bridges south of the 20/10 split were bad, really bad. There were a few heart pounding moments there as I coasted over the iced up bridges. One was particularly bad as there was a car carrier passing me on my left.
But wait, there's more... When I decided my riding was done, the nearest function on my GPS pulled up a lodge in Balmorhea, the only lodging this side of Fort Stockton. I had two very real concerns. First, were they still in business - I passed many abandoned motels. Second, was the off ramp accessible by motorcycle. I passed many of those that were not; not even by dirt bike. When I arrived, I was confronted with my third fear - did they have a vacancy. There was a no vacancy sign on the desk and nobody there. There was also a sign that said to press the green button for service. I thought I should ask, and if there was, in fact nothing, I should see if he/she had any recommendations. I wasn't going to Fort Stockton and if worse came to worster (I know it's not a word), I would stay at the campsite down the street. It would be a chilly night; but, I would survive. As luck would have it, Florence answered the buzzer with a "Yes, we have rooms. I'll be right over." WOOO HOOO!!! I could have cared less if she said it was $450/night. I would gladly have paid it. As it worked out, this place is really nice. Pics below. I also have some GoPro video of the ride. Faint of heart should look at the pics and skip the video.
This might be one of the best videos I've ever shot. It's 60 seconds long, watch to the end. There's a peak-a-boo moment. So, how did I shoot this video and the other 5 in the set? Simple. While riding on the highway, I thought it would be fun to shoot, so I turned GoPro on; but, I didn't realize, at the time, that I was riding with my face shield up because it was frozen over. Seriously. What you see out of the camera lens would be exactly what I would have seen if I had my face shield down. When I lifted the chin bar on my helmet, viola, the face shield tilted out of the way and the camera lens was clear. In retrospect, it's just better that I didn't get video. In fact, if I had the face shield down, the camera lens would have iced over. So, GoPro, when will you have heated lenses?
Its like I said: "It could be 80 and sunny".....
ReplyDelete