Emptiness Tour 2021: Darkness Turns Into Dawn

 

White Sands National Park, NM


Yogananda was right!  In his Autobiography of a Yogi (read once a year by Steve Jobs), Yogananda decides to travel to the South India without any money, only to encounter one miracle after another.  He ends up at a mansion eating with a prince.  Along the way, he meets a number of people; each changing the trajectory of his trip.  Have you ever worried about where you are going to stay for the night?  Do you plan each stop along the way of your travels?

All of a sudden, my arms and legs were starting to hurt.  Something was pounding on my helmet.  I looked down at my arms - HAIL!  Ice was bounding off my gas tank, arms and legs.  It was 50 degrees.  I was cold, my rain gear was drenched, and I was headed into unknown territory in the middle of nowhere with no cell reception.Today's journey took me from Santa Fe, NM to Alamogordo, NM, where I was to visit White Sands National Park the next day.  Traveling south from Santa Fe, on Hwy 285, I ran into very heavy rain and high winds.  The technological gods at Google failed me at that point.  With no cell reception, Google instructed me to get into the right lane and take a left.  I was confused, so I took the exit to the right at Encino, NM.  By this time my helmet shield fogged up.  Google told me to take a right then a left.  The water covered the path (I cannot even call it a road).  I did not know if it was paved or whether it was a gravel path.  I just saw water - the fog was making it very hard to know where the heck I was going.   Google said to take a right over railroad tracks - it was Hwy 3 South.  More like a narrow country lane.


The rain (and hail) stopped, and I drove through incredibly beautiful canyons, finally arriving at the Hwy 54 South junction.  Now on a more normal road, I arrived at a little town named Corona.  I stopped at a little Mexican taco place where I met Jeff & Cindy (from Portland, OR), and Randy (from El Paso, TX).  Cindy was a retired public school music teacher, Jeff had worked in historic preservation, and Randy lived on the outskirts of El Paso traveling from Amarillo, TX on his 600cc Kawasaki motorcycle.

After eating a couple tacos, I left my company and headed south to Alamogordo where I was to spend the night.  When gassing up in Alamogordo, I checked my reservation and found that Hotels.com had screwed up and made the reservation for me at a Super 8 in Mississippi!   When making the reservation, the hotel I actually thought I booked, said that the hotel was 2 miles from White Sands National Park.  Go figure, I got a refund - but the problem was there were literally no rooms available anywhere near White Sands.

Up drives Randy, whom I met at the taco stand in Corona, NM.  He suggested that I drive over the mountains and stay in Las Cruses, NM, location of New Mexico State University.  It turns out that I got the last room in Las Cruses.  Apparently, this was the busiest weekend of the year: numerous weddings, a Tequila Festival, a national softball tournament, and one of two days a year that the White Sands Missile Range was open to the public.     

As it turned out, the 60 mile trek to Las Cruses took me by the entrance to White Sands National Park and the missile range.    Tomorrow I would visit the park, and then travel to Marfa, TX where I would stay the following night,  Randy suggested that I take the scenic route to Marfa - the subject to tomorrow's blog entry.

What a day!  Dawn always follows the darkness.  Randy was instrumental in making me see the bright side of the equation and reminding me that there is no place for fear on a motorcycle journey.  Oh, and thanks to Yogananda ---


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