{"id":56,"date":"2011-06-10T03:36:14","date_gmt":"2011-06-10T03:36:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gypsyjudge.com\/?p=56"},"modified":"2011-06-11T03:06:12","modified_gmt":"2011-06-11T03:06:12","slug":"56","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gypsyjudge.com\/?p=56","title":{"rendered":"Boa constrictors, chinchillas, and long roads thru the desert"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Thursday, Jun 9, 2011 near Yuma, AZ<\/p>\n

I left Lakewood, NM, on Wed, Jun 8, and headed north thru Artesia, then west \u2013 up and over the mountains at Cloudcroft.\u00a0 A beautiful ride in wonderfully cool temperature.\u00a0 The elevation drops from 8,650 feet in Cloudcroft to 4,335 feet in Alamogordo, in a distance of less than 18 miles — great fun on a bike, a bit daunting in a heavy RV.<\/p>\n

I had lunch with John in Las Cruces; we met a couple of years ago when I took the Dirt Bike Course from him, and we\u2019ve become friends.\u00a0 He\u2019s an avid biker and one of the best riders I\u2019ve known.\u00a0 After lunch we rode over to his house to visit with Kayla and play with their four dogs.\u00a0 Somehow, I no longer have the tent that I packed in Florida, so he loaned me one \u2013 and made some comments about how often I\u2019d actually use it over the next six weeks.\u00a0 I took them up on their invitation to stay the night and parked my Wing beside his several bikes. John is always buying and selling bikes and may have to think to tell you how many he has today.\u00a0 (I counted seven).\u00a0 He explains that bikes are like golf clubs; no one is good for everything so you have to have choices.\u00a0 (He has a big dirt bike, a little dirt bike, a very fast sport touring bike, a retro showpiece, and several others scattered in pieces as he\u2019s rebuilding them.\u00a0 And I may have missed one or more.)\u00a0\u00a0 After a good Mexican meal, Kayla showed me her boa constrictor and two chinchillas that live in the guest bedroom.\u00a0 I said I didn\u2019t mind the room mates, so long as the boa couldn\u2019t get out in the middle of the night.\u00a0 Kayla assured me the lid to the snake\u2019s aquarium was tight, and then she took the wheel out of the chinchilla\u2019s cage.\u00a0 I told the boa good night, and went hard to sleep \u2013 after I put in ear plugs (chinchillas play a lot at night, even without a Ferris wheel.)<\/p>\n

This morning I got on the road fairly early and rode 500 miles across the deserts of New Mexico and Arizona.\u00a0 It was noon before it began to get uncomfortably hot, and from then on I simply couldn\u2019t drink enough to make pee (OK, too much detail, right?)<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve stopped for the night in a very comfortable motel (i.e., it\u2019s air conditioned & doesn\u2019t feel like it has bed bugs).\u00a0 Tomorrow, I\u2019ll ride a mere 180 miles to touch the 1st<\/sup> of the 4 corners, then turn right and head somewhat towards Washington.<\/p>\n

After 2,000 miles, it finally feels like I\u2019m actually out here, riding.\u00a0 Much of the earlier route I\u2019d ridden before but it\u2019s all new now.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m working on the pixs \u2013 seems I just too tired tonight to get them on the blog.\u00a0 Hopefully they\u2019ll cooperate before I get on the road tomorrow.\u00a0 A disclaimer \u2013 most of these were taken while riding, so they are certainly not fine art, but hopefully they\u2019ll give you an idea of what I\u2019m seeing.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Thursday, Jun 9, 2011 near Yuma, AZ I left Lakewood, NM, on Wed, Jun 8, and headed north thru Artesia, then west \u2013 up and over the mountains at Cloudcroft.\u00a0 A beautiful ride in wonderfully cool temperature.\u00a0 The elevation drops … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-56","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gypsyjudge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gypsyjudge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gypsyjudge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gypsyjudge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gypsyjudge.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=56"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/gypsyjudge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gypsyjudge.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=56"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gypsyjudge.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=56"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gypsyjudge.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=56"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}