---
title: "Trip report: July 4th trip to Albuquerque"
date: 2018-07-09
---

I decided to do my first [Saddlesore 1000][1] from East Palo Alto to
Albuquerque on July 4th. Here's a rough report of how it went:

## Day 1
Left at 5:45am. I made sure to wear my american flag socks
(<https://www.stance.com/the-fourth/M310BTHE.html>) to celebrate July 4th. I
don't like the wind on I-5 so I opted to go through Fresno on US-99. Overall an
uneventful day. Made it to Albuquerque by 11pm. The hotel front desk clerk
agreed to be my Soresaddle witness. Then I got some Waffle House.

image:IMG_0658.jpg
image:IMG_0665.jpg

## Day 2
Left Albuquerque, headed for the Roswell UFO crash site. Took some
photos, and as I was leaving it started raining really hard. There was lots of
lightning all around me, and then a bolt struck a small hilltop just ahead of
me (the sound delay was less than half a second). I panicked a little bit, and
decided that the safest thing was probably to just keep going straight and gtfo
asap. When I got to Capitan NM it wasn't raining. I got gas and ate a gas
station chimichanga, and it started raining again. The strongest wind was on
this section of US-54 north of Tularosa. There was also a sandstorm which made
it worse because I couldn't see the roadside plants and tumbleweeds to
anticipate the gusts of wind. Rode to White Sands national monument to hide a
geocache for my parents. By the time I was done hiding it, the rain caught up
to me again. Rode through Las Cruces to El Paso. Tried Whataburger for the
first time.

image:IMG_0669.jpg[Roswell crash site, where first contact was made]
image:IMG_0672.mp4[Storm near Roswell]
image:IMG_0699.jpg[What a burger]

Aside: It turns out there are at least 2 different locations given as the
original UFO crash site. I went to the coordinates listed on the wikipedia
article (33.9683,-105.2433), but I later learned that there is a plaque
installed around 4 miles away (33.9500,-105.3142).

## Day 3
Ate breakfast at Chico's Tacos in El Paso. Decided to ride along the
border as much as possible. Went to Tombstone AZ to the site of the OK Corral
gunfight. Went to Tucson, ate delicious enchiladas at Poco & Moms. The next
morning I had Eegee's.

image:IMG_0743.jpg

## Day 4
Hottest day. Forgot to fuel up before I left Tucson. Almost ran out of
gas riding into Gila Bend. The temperature hit 48°C going through Dateland AZ,
and I had to pull over and find some shade at a gas station to cool off.

image:IMG_0779.jpg

When I arrived in Yuma AZ, I found that a Circle-K had a brand of spicy ghost
pepper chips that I had been looking for everywhere (Paqui Haunted Ghost
Pepper). I made the mistake of buying a bag and eating some of them. They taste
like spicy salt, and it made me feel even more thirsty for the rest of the day.
I had seen a documentary called Scrapper (2011), so I wanted to check out
Niland and Slab City. I also wanted to see Salvation Mountain. Left Slab City
and rode off-road on some dirt mounts. Went too fast and almost bailed sliding
down the side of one of the hills. Then I almost bailed 2 more times on the
dirt road heading back to the highway. Decided to take it easy for the rest of
the day. Took a quick detour through Palm Springs. Made it to Santa Clarita and
called it a night.

## Day 5
Ate at an awesome sandwich shop called "Final Score". I wish a had a
windshield for this section of I-5. Got stuck in a bit of traffic just west of
pacheco pass.

image:route.png[Trip route]

Final odometer reading: 2797mi.

[All photos](./photos/)

<https://photos.app.goo.gl/5zSvT9BkQ7PHydzn6>

[1]: http://www.ironbutt.com/themerides/ssseries/