This is a view of the countryside through which we started immediately
upon leaving Alpine, Texas on US 90.
This a view of the road ahead on US 90 as we headed north to
connect to I-10 to continue our trip west.
For much of our travels yesterday and today, US 90 ran parallel
to the Union Pacific (Old Southern Pacific line) railroad. We saw several
trains, all travelling east, and all were pulling flatbed rail cars loaded with containers.
I expect these were Southern California port arrivals.
It was hot again today. But, I managed it a little better than yesterday,
as did Doug. Long sleeves, summer gloves, longer cooling stops, and a different
type of sun screen all helped. It was still hot.
Day Six. All is well. Overnight in Deming, New Mexico.
The day started a little earlier than previous days, so far. We got a light breakfast in town and then we were quickly on the road. The day's starting temperature was seventy nine degrees, which felt very good as we rode along.
We were again on US 90, which began to meander north after a few miles toward the southwest north. We continued on US 90 until we reached I-10. By that time the temperature had warmed to the high 90's, and by the time we reached El Paso it was above 100 degrees. El Paso (pop. 674,433) was a busy city, complete with several highway construction projects underway, and an abundance of traffic. We experienced a few slowdowns because of the construction and heavy traffic, which is quiet troublesome when the temperature is above 100 degrees and you are on a motorcycle. With the pavement radiating additional heat it gets uncomfortable quickly.
We also had another border guard checkpoint/stop along I-10 west of El Paso. We had one yesterday on US 90, which I did not include in yesterdays post. Travel though the checkpoint took us 10-15 minutes to make our way to the front of the line where the courteous border guard quickly waved us though with a minimum of words.
After getting through El Paso we stopped at the New Mexico Welcome Center near Las Cruces, New Mexico (pop. 100,000, appx.) and cooled. We also adorned our cooling towels and wet our undershirts for a tad of evaporated cooling on our last short leg of the trip into Deming. The evaporation helped considerably, for the short term anyway.
The elevation along our travels today was near 5,000 feet, which was not high enough for us to benefit from cooler high elevation temperatures. Our route of travel was across mostly high desert, although there were a few areas that appeared to have a water source.
By the time we made it to our motel we were looking forward to the modern convenience of air conditioning.
Another good day.
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