It is amazing how tired you are after 2 long days of riding. Day 1 was 330 miles long, Day 2 was 400 miles and today was 341 miles. We have completed 1,071 miles in three days. Pretty good when you are moving over 300 people at the time... This morning dawned bright and a little cool, but we knew that the cool air would not last very long. The sky was clear, and the sun was hot and bright.
We ate a great breakfast at the VFW Post in the morning and had our morning briefing. We sang a belated "Happy Birthday" to "Baron" and embarrassed the daylights out of him. That was a lot of fun... After the morning briefing we were lead by police escort to the Las Cruces Veterans Memorial Park for a Wreath Laying Ceremony. It may seem like we attend a lot of ceremonies during our run across country, but these ceremonies don't take long and are very much needed for our veterans. The veterans are finally receiving the respect and appreciation they should have been given when they came back from fighting in Vietnam. We also got to visit with some World War II veterans at Las Cruces. Talking to these veterans is better than reading any history book. These veterans saw what was going on, and can provide you with a first-hand accounting of what they saw along with what they felt. You cannot get that kind of emotion from any book or audio tape, you need to be able to look into the eyes of a veteran and listen to them talk. Then, most importantly, you need to thank them for their service to our country. If it was not for them, we would not have the freedoms we have today.
After the Wreath Laying Ceremony in Las Cruces, NM, we all climbed (some of us creaked) onto our motorcycles and began the next leg of our trip to Clint, Texas. There we had a quick fuel stop (donated by some wonderful people) and then we were back on the road heading to Van Horn, TX where we had a great lunch provided by the New Life Restoration Center of El Paso, Texas. Again, we got back on the motorcycles and rode off to Pecos, TX for another donated fuel stop. We had to wait in Pecos a little extra time to watch an especially bad storm pass. Once the worst part of the storm moved across the highway, we all climbed back onto our motorcycles and rode between storm cells into Odessa, TX where a wonderful catfish and all the "fixin's" dinner was served. The "fixin's" included fried chicken, hush puppies (they were AWESOME and made just right), cole slaw, beans and french fries. That was topped off with delicious cake and home made ice cream. I had a very hard time climbing back onto my bike to head off to our evening hotel (my belly got in the way...).
I would like to note that our Platoon (Platoon 6) had our very own Police Escort today through El Paso, TX. It is really cool to have the police riding motorcycles with their lights flashing, keeping cars away from us. It made us feel really safe and very special.
The weather was very good all day, except after the afternoon fuel stop. We had some bad rain cross the highway, which we missed, but the 4-wheeler Platoon, which was held up waiting for one of theirs to get two new axles, had to play dodge-em with a tornado. Apparently the tornado touched down near them, then a massive lightning strike hit a commercial building and set it on fire. I am very glad the other motorcyclists were not there to witness that, it would have been a very frightening experience.
Tomorrow I will post some pictures from the run, tonight my camera is still on the motorcycle and I don't want to go out in this horrible wind and dust just to retrieve the camera.
If you would like to view the detailed Sit Reps for the Southern Route, click here, if you would like to view both the Central and Southern Sit Reps, then go to www.rftw.org and click on Sit Reps and then choose which route's Sit Reps you would like to read.
Until tomorrow...
No comments:
Post a Comment