Day 46 - ending at Nara Visa, NM - The Great Plains Trail - Sort Of

June 29, 2023

Day 46 - ending at Nara Visa, NM

Day 46 - Tucumcari, NM to Nara Visa, NM

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After studying maps and determining distances using Google Maps, I decided on a plan for the next two days to get back to my pre-trip plan. Though not on the GPT, Clayton, New Mexico is on my plan. From Tucumcari, where I am now, it is 111 miles. I could be there in two days. The small town of Nara Visa is about halfway along the route following US-54 and NM-402. But there isn't a place to stay in Nara Visa. Zooming in on Google Earth, there appears to be a playground in Nara Visa. Maybe I'd be able to stay there. So that's my destination for today. Sights that I'll be missing on this off-GPT route include Mills Canyon and Capulin Volcano, but that can't be helped at this point.

I was up at 4:12am. Got yesterday's report posted, then loaded the bike. At 7:55am, I headed over to the motel's breakfast room for coffee and another special breakfast made by Tiffany. Cooking seems to be one of her passions, and she's good at it. Another couple staying at the motel showed up for breakfast also, so there were fun conversations about places we have been. Roel and Tiffany's hospitality has made my stay here the best. Roel even offered that I call him if I get into trouble the next few days.

With best wishes from everyone, I took off riding at 8:56am. I headed west as far as the Circle-K to get ice for my thermos. The ice was free since I'd filled up my own container. I also had with me two bottles of frozen Gatorade, and 2 gallons of bottled water that Roel had given me, so I was in good shape for staying hydrated. From Circle-K I went north to get to US-54.

Pleasant morning riding along this highway with a decent shoulder. Sometimes the shoulder was split into two or three lanes, I guess you'd call them, where when they repaved the road they didn't repave the shoulder its whole width. So I'd pick the best shoulder 'lane', based on how much traffic was passing by and where the path was clear of debris.

A truck must have lost a bag of onions for onions were scattered along the shoulder. They looked in good shape, but I don't know about eating a whole onion raw.

I crossed the Canadian River at 11:42am just before I arrived in Logan. Logan has motels, gas stations, and places to eat, being it's close to Ute Lake State Park. I wasn't all that hungry after my big breakfast this morning, but this would be my last chance for a non-lunch-box meal today, so I stopped at Lake House Cafe. The French toast I had was just right. I remembered to record the noon mileage when I was back outside: 23.8 miles.

There were a couple bands of the scattered rain showing on the weather radar. I rode over to the town's park to let the rain pass. By then I decided it wasn't going to be enough rain to matter, and took off again riding at 12:42pm. I took a break at 2:25pm by the railroad track that parallels the highway on my left. This frozen Gatorade is so good. I wish I could start out every day with two frozen bottles.

At 4:29pm, I arrived at the city limits for Nara Visa. This town has definitely seen better days. Most all the buildings are empty. I took some pictures as I made my way to the east side of town where the playground is. The playground is next to an old school building which is now a community center. I was happy to see that there was someone on a mowing tractor cutting grass at the playground area. Maybe they'd know who I need to ask to get permission to camp. By the time I got to the person, I noticed that there is a pavilion just south of the school building. The girl mowing said there are no city officials because they are no longer a town, but I could camp there and there's water available.

By 5:00 I had my bike parked underneath the pavilion. Looks like they have electricity here also. I checked an outlet. It was powered. This is so great a setup - much more than I imagined.

I sat down on one of the picnic tables and called my father-in-law. He and many others have been sending me encouraging emails, which I have not been good at answering, so I felt at least a phone call was in order. We weren't very far into our conversation when the connection dropped. That's when I realized the cell signal here is very poor. My sister-in-law was able to text message with me, so I explained the situation. I'll give my father-in-law a call some other time when I have a good connection.

It looked like there might be enough of a signal to send out my 'I've arrived' evening email. As I wrote that message up, I was hearing thunder to the south. Just then my phone gave a special weather alert. Looks like there's a storm coming.

At 6:00pm it got windy, and then there was some rain for about 15 minutes. Then at 6:33pm there was strong winds and heavy rain. I hadn't unloaded the bike yet. It was definitely too windy to put up the tent. And there was lightning around. Every once in a while there'd be a loud snap, which I believe was coming from the electrical junction box for the pavilion. The wind did calm down enough so that at 7:15pm I was able to eat supper out of my lunch box. Then, just before 8:00pm, the rain was over and the wind calmed to nothing. I got the tent set up.

I started work on picture selection, but was falling asleep to the sound of sprinkles hitting the top of the pavilion. So it was 'to bed' for me at 9:45pm, with thanks for how everything worked out so well today.

Jeff

Spent: $9.73 plus $1.95 (lunch) = $11.68

Today's ride: 49 miles (79 km)
Total: 1,918 miles (3,087 km)

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