Roswell, NM (May 27) -

We loaded up the bikes, minus a couple of shirts, and headed east. About 100 miles later we came to Show Low and decided to stop for breakfast. Now I don’t know what it is about Show Low, but I have not had a good experience there yet.

The first time I was through there was about five years ago. My daughter was living with a boy friend near Apache Junction and had decided to leave him (finally). I was driving down from Michigan to pick her up. I came into Show Low from the north and thought it a very nice looking town. Heading south toward Globe, I neared the final traffic light in town. It was on the edge of town, the buildings had thinned out and there was only forest ahead. As I rolled down the hill toward the light, it turned green and I allowed myself to pick up speed again. I was up to about 40 miles per hour when a young man who was stopped on the right, decided to run the red light. He took off into my path and turned left towards me. I hit the horn and brakes, the tires were squealing as I locked them up, and he continued to accelerate. The front suspension on my S-10 was compressed completely as the rear quarter of his car disappeared from my view under my hood. All I could think of at the moment was "God help me, I can’t total this vehicle here, I’m too far from home!" I blinked, and the car cleared my view. We never touched, but we could not have missed by more than an inch! The hood on an S-10 slopes down and you have to be incredibly close go out of sight beneath it and his entire rear quarter from the tire back was out of sight. God was with me that time. I drove through the light, pulled over and thanked Him.

And now I was back in Show Low again. We were becoming hungry and saw this sign for ”Nancy’s Family Restaurant.” Seemed like a good place to stop. It was about a block or so off the main street and had lots of cars in front. We pulled up and went in. It was about half full and everyone was visiting and seemed to be enjoying themselves. A lady came and seated us in a side room off the main part. I thought that odd at the time, as the main room was not full. She gave us water and left. We waited for a while and I decided to use the bathroom. As I walked through the main lobby, I saw the waitress look at me then go back to her duties. I came back and sat back down and waited some more. After twenty minuets, we decided we were not going to be served and got up to leave. As we walked out, everyone watched us. We received no comments from the waitresses, or anyone else. I guess they just didn’t like bikers. I have never had that happen before to me and didn’t appreciate the feeling.

We stopped at McDonalds where we were served quickly and with a smile. We ate and hit the road again.

The landscape was wooded and gently rolling, overall very pretty. I really enjoyed this part of Arizona. We crossed over into New Mexico and the terrain changed from wooded to high desert. About lunchtime we came to Pie Town (and stopped for pie of course!). Pie Town is a whole story in itself and is in my "Pistols and Pistons" articles. Great restaurant, very rustic. This is the "real" west. Had a piece of pie that I didn’t intend to have after eating too big a hamburger! The pie was great!
Very Large Array
It's a Big universe...

Huge Antennas
so why point them all to the same spot?

Saw the " Very Large Array" the space listening dishes. Wow, is this impressive when you see it in person. You will quite often see these in movies, but you do not get the whole picture as you only see one row. There are 22 of these dishes and they cover several miles in a huge " Y" shape. Question. If you were listening to space and trying to pick up any activity, wouldn’t you spread the dishes out to cover the maximum amount of sky? All of the dishes converge on a single spot in the sky. It actually looks more like a star wars weapons system than a passive listening device when aimed that way. I don’t want to start a rumor, just stating an observation. Also saw white sands missile range. It’s a whole lot of nothing.

Went though Lincoln, where Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid had their doings. The town is restored to the 1800s and there are “shootouts” for tourists. I will have to come back someday when they are open. It looks like a fascinating place and well worth a special trip to see. We are getting low on gas. I’m leading now and we have passed through a couple of small towns where we have seen no gas stations. I take that back. There were a couple, but they look like they have been abandoned and empty for over 30 years. We were beginning to get concerned so we slowed down to conserve gas. When we finally found a station we had 238 miles on the odometer! Both Harleys had the low fuel light on.

We are dropping down out of the mountains to Roswell. We hit some construction, then the road turned into a nice divided four lane all the way into Roswell. Roswell is a lot bigger town than I thought it would be from what I had seen on TV.

We stayed at Day’s Inn; I am using the September days discount card a lot. Ron almost got shorted on change again, (he MUST look easy). We went to Denny’s restaurant for supper. There were a bunch of college kids playing the ringers on their cell phones. Imagine 7 or 8 cell phones continually playing all of their musical rings. That got irritating very quickly. I was going to put on my best mafia imitation and tell them " My friend back there just got out, and he wants you should not do that. You don’t want he should have to come over here." As I was about to get up and go over to them, Ron just hollered, " Shut that crap off!" End of problem.

-LC