Garmin Stats and Maps
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| Lovely meals with Melanie and Pastor Tom |
A huge storm came through Albuquerque while I was being hosted. My timing to get off the road couldn't have been better. I ended up staying 3 nights with Melanie and Pastor Tom. They have a very comfortable home and really took great care of me. I loved our conversations and the delicious meals. They are a very generous and interesting couple. Pastor Tom kept a vigilant watch on the weather. He saw the mountains to the east on my route were forecast to get 4 inches of snow with the incoming storm. Oh boy! I can't even consider riding in the snow. Melanie and Tom generously offered for me to stay until after the snowstorm passed. Realistically, this could be many, many days. That's a long time to be at someone's home. I decided to rent a U-Haul truck to escape the worst of the storm. There was a break in the weather on the morning of my 3rd day and Pastor Tom suggested if I was determined to go this would be the window. He helped me get to the rental place to pick up a truck. There are a few restrictions for renting one-way trucks. The closest town I could rent a U-Haul truck to on my route is Amarillo, TX. This would be a jump of 250 miles. The cost of renting a truck was going to be about the same as I would have spent riding. Pastor Tom said I wouldn't be missing much besides desert and scrub which is beautiful in it's own way. Renting the truck put me a week's ride ahead.
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| Picking up the U-Haul truck in the snow |
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| Trike and trailer put together again in Amarillo, TX |
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| Amarillo hotel |
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| Myrtle safe in the room |
The morning after St. Patrick's day was very quiet. Temps for the start of my ride were in the low 30s, bbbrrrr cold. Even though it felt much better to be on Route 66 instead of I-40, the landscape was sparse and barren. The fields haven't started growing crops. There are few trees like much of the route, so far. The riding from Amarillo to Groom and then McLean was mostly about getting to the next warm hotel room and being safe for the night. There wasn't anything interesting to explore and it was just too cold to stop anyway.
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| On Route 66 - Texas |
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| Lots of wind and wind turbines |
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| Route 66 in Texas |
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I wasn't in Texas but a few days before crossing into Oklahoma. The landscape continued to be bleak. The route also continued to descend. I was hoping the temperature would rise. At least there wasn't any snow. The temperature rose incrementally and was still very cold with strong south or southwest winds. A few times that I had a headwind was, luckily, not for long. The wind is very loud, brutally cold, and slows me down a lot. Headwinds are not fun! I was very happy to be riding east. The strong westerly wind would make cycling this route from east to west very difficult. I'm hoping my ride from DC to Oregon won't have winds as strong as I have been experiencing coming east. I might need bigger batteries for that return trip! It felt good to be in a new state and also seemed like I got here very fast.
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