Meandering To Red River
Time to relax after a 300-mile day.
As the crow flies it is about 175 miles from Grants, New Mexico, to Red River. Of course that’s not how roads go but sometimes, if you really try, you can make the ride a whole lot longer. On this recent RMMRC New Mexico ride, we made it about 300.
Grants to Red River is northeast, so we started by going west. That’s because there’s really no way to make that run going east without going through or around Albuquerque. No fun. Plus, that would have entailed riding all the way from Grants to Albuquerque on I-40. Extra no fun.
Instead, we headed west on I-40 about 25 miles to Thoreau, and then turned north. But first, barely getting going, I noticed that Charley, riding sweep, was nowhere to be seen. It turned out that just as he was getting on the highway his glasses simply fell apart. Unable to put them back together there on the spot, he pulled out some prescription sunglasses and put those on, then cranked it to catch up.
Seeing that he wasn’t behind me, I slowed down a lot. Once he caught up with me I tried catching up with the other guys but they were blasting. I was hitting 95 at times and couldn’t catch up, although when we passed a radar sign the other day it said I was going seven mph slower than what my speedometer was saying, so who knows how fast I was really going.
The others pulled off at the next exit, Milan, which is where we caught up with them. We sat there a little while, during which time we chatted a bit with some guys on dirt bikes. Then we were off again.
At Thoreau we headed north on NM 371, and then reached CR 9, which turned east. We were on the rim of a basin right there, heading into the basin, and as far as I could see we were heading into a lot of nothing. That told me this next stretch was going to be long and mostly straight. And it was. Plus, a mileage sign said Cuba, our next destination, 94 miles.
So we cruised along a ways and came to an intersection of a road coming up from the south and there were three dirt bikes parked there. I wondered if those were those same guys. If so, either we took a longer route than we might have or they rode on gravel. Who knew?
After awhile we came upon maybe the biggest array of solar panels any of us has ever seen. There was a little store there and we were overdue for a stop so we did. Meanwhile, apparently the dirt bikers went past us while we were in there because when we stopped in Cuba there they were again. I asked and they said they came up on the road from where we’d seen them and it was paved and a nice road. Some of the navigation on this trip has not been the best, it seems. But it can be really hard to know what a road is like with just maps.
We headed on from Cuba, presumably to Alcalde and to the south end of Taos to do the Angel Fire loop. At some point Gene took the lead and we were headed the route I expected and then he made a left turn. I forgot my maps on this trip so for maybe the first time ever I was not able to check and see where we were and what our route was. But this seemed wrong.
We kept going north then turned east past a sign saying Ojo Caliente ahead. I thought oh man! Ojo Caliente? Why are we so far north? And then we hit US 285 and Ojo Caliente was south and we turned north. I thought, oh man, if we take 285 up to Tres Piedras and go east we’ll be on US 64 headed for the north end of Taos. And I decided if that happened I would go left to Questa regardless of what everyone else did.
But we didn’t go to Tres Piedras, we turned east on what turned out to be a cut-off. Nobody ahead of me stopped to make sure folks behind made the turn so I did, but I wasn’t really in a place where they could see me in time to make the turn. Bruce did made the turn, and Charley, but Bruce said later he knew about the turn and would not have seen me in time. We reached US 64 just west of the Rio Grande Gorge and yes, that’s where we were.
Coming up to the NM 150 intersection, Gene pulled over and said we had two options: go left to Questa and over and beat the rain or go through Taos and head right into the belly of the beast. “Look at that over there.” The sky “over there” was as dark and ugly as you could imagine.
We headed to Questa. We got to Red River and got checked in, then sat out on the deck drinking, smoking cigars, and talking. And then about the time we were heading out to dinner the rain arrived. Two days in a row now that we dodged it while on the bikes. Our luck continued to hold.
Biker Quote for Today
Happiness is a motorcycle, a full tank of gas and twisty roads.
