Memorial Day Weekend 2019 moto-camping in New Mexico

[Burque73]

We talked for months about this trip and finally, we got to go. After hundreds of dollars in parts for our nearly 40-year-old bikes, we felt confident they were as ready as we were. Or more so… I know I wasn’t really ready until right before heading out, LOL.

My wife snapped this as I left.

20190524_103504 by Roger, on Flickr

Raygun and I agreed to meet up in Socorro and head West from there. I knew he had a little longer ride to get there so I had a little extra time at the house. This gave me a chance to download a few stations on my offline Pandora subscription, which was a first for me. I always just tune in to an FM radio station, but in the hills where we were headed that wasn’t going to work. Anyway, I made it to Socorro, hit the ATM for some cash and Raygun called. I’ve got a problem, he says…

He’s talking on his Sena while riding and tells me his ride just got really rough for some reason. His rear Shinko Tourmaster decided to lose a few pounds for the trip.
20190524_144223 by Roger, on Flickr

He was able to limp down the shoulder of I-25 on into Socorro. Not sure how many miles, maybe 30 or 40, but I’m amazed the tire held! He somehow found a new tire in Albuquerque, 85 miles North, and located a tire shop in Socorro, and talked with me about how to get the new tire to him WITHOUT STOPPING! I called back to Albuquerque and asked my wife if she’d be interested in taking a short road trip to bring the new tire for Raygun. To our delight, she said yes!

As Raygun rolled into town, we met for lunch and waited for my wife. Our first stop and someone already asks about the old bike out in the parking lot, his KZ1300. As we were walking out, an older (80 something) Navajo lady said to me “I almost joined the Hell’s Angels just to ride a motorcycle”. I told her she didn’t have to join those guys, I said I’d take her for a ride. She laughed and declined the offer.

Oh yeah, the tire… My wife showed up with a brand-new Dunlop 404. We thanked her and Raygun said she had just saved the trip. I owe her big time! Fortunately, she rather enjoys a spontaneous road trip every now and then. On to the tire shop…

The one guy that worked the little shop was out on a wrecker call or something, so we got the KZ ready and sat there. We got our Sena headsets paired up and Raygun showed me some tips on using the headset. That thing can do way more than I’ll probably ever use it for. Anyway, the shop guy finally showed up and swapped out the tire in no time.
20190524_162430 by Roger, on Flickr

New rubber, time to roll!

20190524_164458 by Roger, on Flickr

With the new rubber on the ground we hit the highway at around 5pm. Heading West on 60 we passed through Magdelana and the Very Large Array radio telescope, then veered South a bit towards Apache Creek campground. This is as far as we’ll go for tonight. About 120 miles after the tire fiasco, but we’re away from town and loving the ride!

Here’s the camp setup on the first night.

20190524_200240 by Roger, on Flickr

A look into the GS’s pantry shows the stash of MRE’s from the Kirtland Air Force Base commissary. Looks like I’ll have the chicken burrito bowl for dinner tonight!

20190524_200303 by Roger, on Flickr

It got dark pretty fast, and real friggin cold! We weren’t expecting temps into the twenty’s overnight. The sun came up and boy were we glad! We walked over to where the sun was first shining and stood chatting for a while before tearing down the camp site to head out.

More to follow.

[Steve]

Is Raygun's 1300 an '80 or '81? Hard to tell the difference, but they were both considerably different than my '79.

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[Redman]

Great!

Will look for updates.

[Buffalo Bill]

Tire shedding? WOW!!!

Your camping trip sounds great, but the tire shedding is really unusual!
How that happened we'd like to know. Was it the heat?
Looks like a retread truck tire.

[dorkburger]

Nice.

I'm glad that the tire situation was only an inconvenience.

[Burque73]

Is Raygun's 1300 an '80 or '81? Hard to tell the difference, but they were both considerably different than my '79.

.

I'm pretty sure his KZ is an 82.

Your camping trip sounds great, but the tire shedding is really unusual!
How that happened we'd like to know. Was it the heat?
Looks like a retread truck tire.

Maybe the temperature, maybe incorrect pressure. Who knows. I'm running the same tires as lots of us are. Never seen one separate like this. You'd think Bwringer, among others, would've experienced this if they were prone to such failure.

[Burque73]

Saturday, on the move.

Heading into camp the night before was pretty sketchy traveling. Highway 12 had loose gravel on the paved road, and we were taking it really slow…ish. Raygun amazed me how he handled that beast, which was about 200lbs more than my 850. As we left and continued down hwy 12, the loose gravel was gone! The road we camped on was some access road for heavy trucks so maybe that had something to do with the stretch leading up to that point.


Our route for day two.

https://www.google.com/maps/dir/33.8327237,-108.6270174/gila+cliff+dwellings/Deming,+NM/32.5879485,-107.9746474/@33.072211,-108.1760551,9.25z/data=!4m16!4m15!1m0!1m5!1m1!1s0x87275a27c8136e5f:0x3f23db089c7eeb93!2m2!1d-108.2722727!2d33.2272903!1m5!1m1!1s0x86dec3e11b3f3e77:0x84cdb12207b10b2e!2m2!1d-107.7586404!2d32.2686981!1m0!3e0

Kudos to Raygun for throwing together these maps. He really laid out some challenging twisties for us to ride. He was like a tour guide, honestly. Hearing his voice on the headset reminded me of a Greyhound bus driver making announcements to the passengers. When I mentioned that he chuckled and said, on the right folks we have trees! And on the left, um…. Trees! The daily grind in town had suppressed my sense of humor and it was great to laugh with a friend. I was totally down for whatever we encountered, so his map was superb wherever we wound up. After all we still had three days of riding ahead of us.

A Redman style shot sometime Saturday morning.

20190525_100713 by Roger, on Flickr



We stopped around every 65-75 miles for gas, since we weren’t sure when the next stop opportunity would be, or if the itty-bitty towns had any gas! Years ago, I got stranded in Quemado when one station was closed, and the only other station ran out of gas! Needless to say I didn’t complain about stopping. I didn’t have a camelback so every stop was hydration time, and maybe some jerky or something. At one stop, we met a Native American fellow that asked if we were traveling across the country, like a couple of rebels. Two young guys on 40 ish year old Japanese bikes, not too rebellious IMO, I said, LOL. Nope, just exploring the area. He was a nurse and expressed his concern for riders as he’d seen it all, as we could imagine.

Stopping in Silver City for lunch, next to the big ditch.

20190525_122201 by Roger, on Flickr

There was some gathering in Silver City, but we were out to ride, not park with other bikes and compare chrome!

Heading up toward the Gila Cliff Dwellings was the highlight of the day, IMO. That road was God’s gift to motorcycles! Poor Raygun must’ve constantly wondered if I’d stopped for pics, or maybe found a patch of gravel to slide into the trees on. As mentioned before, the guy carved those roads on his KZ very gracefully! Either that or I’m just lugging mine, or both, LOL. We agreed to ride our own ride as we’d meet up eventually.

20190525_135316 by Roger, on Flickr

I picked up a couple of souvenirs. One for my wife, and a shirt for me to remember the awesome road going up there.

20190527_205239 (1) by Roger, on Flickr

After coming down the hill a bit, we came to the Lake Roberts area. Apparently, this little lake is famous for trophy fish. I had no idea until my stepson told me when I got home.

Here’s a shot of Raygun being distracted by some fisherman weighing his trophy rainbow trout. No pic of the fish, sorry…

20190525_161339 by Roger, on Flickr

We blasted down toward the City of rocks campground for the night. Both exhausted from not sleeping the night before and eager to check this new site out. They supposedly had free hot showers! The whole area is so cool. Looks like something from Mars.

Here’s Saturday night’s camp.

20190526_071519 by Roger, on Flickr

Dang, as I type I remember just how much fun this trip was. Excuse the long winded reports, but if you’ve read this far I suppose you don’t mind.

[alke46]

I have traveled that US 60 west from Socorro but I never knew this scenic road existed. I plan on going through there in October so maybe I can get one of those neat T-shirts.

Nice write-up by the way.

[Redman]

Roger,
no, did not mind the story’s.
yes, read them all to somewhat experience it with you guys.

looks like we’re camping on rocks there.....

[dorkburger]

Same here. I enjoy the stories that go along with these trips.

[Burque73]

Cool, thanks guys. I've enjoyed reading about other folks adventures and thought I'd add one for the books, so to speak.

The ground on the first night was actually two inches of soil on top of what seemed to be a cement slab. We couldn't drive tent stakes in anywhere in that site. At the city of rocks, the stakes went in without a problem and the ground was surprisingly flat. That's a very nice place to camp BTW. The way it's laid out is like an apartment complex where most sites have a view across the vast landscape, but not of other sites. Oh, and the rocks make good shelter from the wind.

We were talking about the possibility of rattlesnakes and realized that between the two of us, in our 75 years combined life span, we'd only seen two out in the desert. Since there are something like 30 species of rattlesnakes, where'd they all go I wonder. Maybe their venom is a delicacy to aliens and all of them got scooped up for it. A funny comment, if I can relay it as such, was when we were talking about the snakes and the possibility of the folks next to us with small kids encountering one. Raygun, as if speaking in that father's voice, said "don't worry, I'll kill it with my beard!" The dude did have a pretty manly Grizzly Adams kind of beard. Again, it was good to laugh.

I forgot to mention we made a short trip to Deming for Raygun to see some of his family members passing through. It was great to meet them and listen to the stories they shared.

I'll get a post together for Sunday's ride later on.

[Burque73]

Sunday, we agreed, was the best day of the whole trip.

Waking from a sound sleep, I was the first to unzip the tent. I got dressed and made it before anyone to the showers at the front entrance to the campground. It was a super clean, nice restroom with soap provided and a couple of books laying on the shelf if you had to wait a bit for a shower. Back at camp and it’s Raygun’s turn at the shower so I made some breakfast. The trail mix my wife threw together, paired with the oats from the MRE and some dried fruit made for a gret meal! The MRE also came with some cocoa mix that made the instant Folgers coffee actually taste pretty good. I mixed half of that for now, and left half for the road, premixed with coffee, as a quick wake up shot.

20190526_074429 by Roger, on Flickr

We made our way back toward Silver City and stopped to check our bike’s oil and fuel up, when a rumbling noise surrounded us. No room for cars now, this is a bike only station, LOL.

It was so cool visiting with those guys. A few of them came to look at my 850 and told stories how they all, at the same time, purchased the same bikes new in the 80’s. Oh yeah, the guy in this pic liked the KZ and has one himself, a KZ1000 though. Raygun asked why he was riding such a modern bike then? His buddies all laughed and teased because out of the group, he’s the classic bike guy.

20190526_104158 by Roger, on Flickr

We passed through Silver City and took a left toward Mule Creek, crossing over into Arizona. The wind at this point was hammering us from the left side. I think Raygun rather enjoyed the challenge of riding sideways. Me….not so much!

20190526_105801 by Roger, on Flickr

Up ahead we could see a massive cloud of dust. I wasn’t sure if the soil was particularly loose up there or the wind got even stronger. We stopped in a cool little town to gas up again and sat at a park for lunch. Picking through our remaining food supply, we still had not bought anything but water and drinks in the towns we passed through. The livestock next to the park made for some entertaining conversation after lunch.

Pressing on through Three Way, AZ, while riding through Clifton, we noticed a cool old bridge. Both of us wanted to turn around and see it. That little spontaneous stop turned out to be one of the highlights of the trip. We found this gigantic shovel that was restored and preserved by a group of local volunteers.

20190526_123439 by Roger, on Flickr

20190526_124100 by Roger, on Flickr

We probably spent a half hour just marveling at that shovel. The dust cloud we noticed was coming from the mine next door to Clifton which is the Morenci mine. This ride knocked our socks off! The shovels were digging and loading trucks, which drove over bridges as we rode beneath. Another bonus neither of us expected. We stopped at an overlook to see into the mine.

20190526_132949(0) by Roger, on Flickr

Despite the high winds, we saw several groups of bikes on this road. For good reason too, it was friggin amazing to ride! At one point, we swapped bikes and I got to ride his KZ. I had even more respect for his ability to handle those roads after sitting in the saddle of the 1300cc beast! It made my 850 seem light and nimble, which was refreshing in some way. After we traded back, Raygun noticed I was riding better and keeping up more so than before. I guess I just needed a new perspective.

This is getting quite lengthy, so I’d better wrap it up. Plus, dinner is ready, and I’m still stuck in Arizona in my mind.


We made it up through Hannagan Meadow and turned back toward New Mexico at Alpine, finally ending up at Head of the ditch campground. It was so cool to have a fire and hang out under the stars for a while. Raygun found a log that seemed to be filled with napalm. The thing burned to no end!

20190526_202400 by Roger, on Flickr

Monday’s coming, but Sunday was absolutely the best day of riding I think either of us had ever experienced!

[2BRacing]

Thanks for sharing, Roger - fantastic pictures describing a wonderful trip! I really enjoy seeing these parts of your country.

[Burque73]

Monday, time to head back toward home. It had to happen sooner or later. We still have a little food left, which surprised me. Each night we locked up our grub in saddle bags to keep yogi and boo boo from making off with it. I had one MRE left that made it home. Also, various packages of tuna stuff, veggie chips and nacho cheese coated kale my wife bought at a natural grocer type store. I’ve heard stories of the military guys being backed up from too many MRE’s so I brought plenty of organic and healthy-ish snacks.
We packed up camp slowly this time. I think the elevation was a bit higher than Friday night, but it wasn’t as cold. Raygun had an annoying speedo cable issue that caused him to just remove it altogether earlier on so it was nice to sort that before hitting the road.

We headed out and rode together for a few hours before splitting up in our own directions. We stopped for gas in Reserve, which was the namesake for at least one corny joke (we’re almost to reserve….dang your bike sucks gas, I still have a half tank) or something along those lines…

We came up near Quemado lake and stopped for a few. Every stop was an opportunity to rehydrate. Nothing really noteworthy here but tall pine trees and a couple of great looking old bikes.

20190527_102935 by Roger, on Flickr

We parted ways after the town of Quemado where I continued North on hwy 36 then following 117 up to I-40. That stretch before the Malpais is so cool to ride if you like wide open space. I swear you can see for a hundred miles in any direction. I stopped for lunch and watched the big black beetles pace back and forth under the table as I ate. It was quite entertaining actually.

20190527_132633 by Roger, on Flickr

El Malpais is a massive lava flow that has always fascinated me. I love to imagine the violent heaving of molten rock from the Earth, forming this landscape. You can see part of the black lava flow here.

20190527_141847 by Roger, on Flickr

The crosswind on I-40 was insane! I leaned into the wind scraping the right footpeg. OK, Not really, but it was awful. I got blown over the line, across the rumble strip and down the ledge almost to the weeds. Once I regained control and got back into the traffic lane, I hit the next exit. Resting here I snapped my last two pics of the trip. A mile down the road I saw an 18 wheeler on it's side, presumably from the wind.

One thing that amazes me looking back over these photos is the ever-changing landscape. Man, I love this place!
20190527_150153 by Roger, on Flickr

20190527_150231 by Roger, on Flickr

I took 155 pictures on this trip as not to forget it. Then again, being both Raygun’s and my first multi day, moto-camp ride, I’m sure we will never forget it!

[Andrew Vanis]

Very Cool.

Nice way to showcase teh SW part of our state!