55th Class Reunion on a Two-Wheeled SUV

Dick Fredericksen's Website 55th Class Reunion on a Two-Wheeled SUV

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55th Class Reunion on a Two-Wheeled SUV:

A Two-Wheeled What?

Laying On the Utility

Thinking Small for a Big Trip

Day 1: Tucson to Las Cruces

Day 2: The Road to Santa Rosa

Day 3: Kittycorner to Kansas

Days 4 and 5: Wet Wichita, Sunny St. Joseph

Day 6: This Way to Humboldt

Enjoying Humboldt (Iowa)

Gas Tank Blackjack

The Real Kansas in Technicolor

A Liberal Dose of Memories

Holbrook? How Did We Wind Up In Holbrook?

Painted, Petrified, and Perfect

The Home Home Stretch

Day 2: The Road to Santa Rosa

This whole day will be within New Mexico. I'll take Highway 70 past Alamogordo to Tularosa, then Highway 54 the rest of the way to Santa Rosa. I've deliberately held myself to a rather short stretch (245 miles), though Tucumcari would be perfectly reachable (304 miles). The thing is, I came through in the other direction in 1999, and noticed some attractive scenery along Highway 54, as well as some tourist attractions on Highway 70. Today I'll leave myself time to stop at the White Sands visitor center and to photograph scenery further on. At least, that's the plan.

The day, though, will be haunted by earlier memories. On this very stretch of Highway 70, in 1999, I encountered one of the worst storms I've ever ridden through. It was the kind where the rain falls horizontally, driven by a wind that wants to take you along for the ride. I had to drop into first gear and tack into the wind just to stay on the highway. (The only good news was that it was pushing me to the shoulder rather than to the opposite lane.) My red rainsuit must have helped, but it seemed an open question at the time whether trucks would pass over me or around me.

So it doesn't help that today the weather forecasters are playing their cards close to the chest. "Scattered thunderstorms." This will turn out to be a problem every day, the whole trip. There will be few actual storms, and several days of nice weather, but no assurance of nice at any time. At any rate, it hurries me along. I decide to skip the Space Mural Museaum and the Missile Range Museum on Highway 70.

I do stop at the visitor center in White Sands National Monument. (By the way, a "national monument" is not a statue, it's a national park which doesn't have a Representative on the Appropriations Committee.) I watch the 20-minute movie about the park, and decide I can't possibly do justice by it in the time at my disposal. Then and there, a plan is born: I'll schedule a day or two in nearby Alamogordo on my way back, and devote some serious time to White Sands. There are hiking trails as well as scenic routes in the park.

The scenery along Highway 54, I decide, will also have to wait. I'm haunted by that 1999 storm. The towns along this stretch are few and tiny; there would be no place to take shelter. I'll hasten along and hope for more settled weather on the return trip. (This will turn out to be a BIG mistake.) For what it's worth, there are two kinds of scenery along this passage. First, there are the vast, empty stretches of scrub desert, a tableau which some might think it would take a Creator to love. That's above my station, but I do find the view attractive, and hope I can some day capture the attraction in pixels. Then, unexpectedly, there are the stretches of pine forest. Maybe it's my imagination, but these seemed thinner this year than in 1999. Were they perhaps caught by a wildfire in the interim?

Anyhow, I make it to Santa Rosa without incident, and immediately wish I had tarried more en route.