Heading for Texas...or where am I today?

After so many days riding Dolly and being adventuresome, Lizzy and I turned the bike toward the East out of Camp Verde and headed for Springerville, NM where we stayed one night before mushing into Ruidoso, NM where we will hook up with hubby and Eli.

The weather is gorgeous, finally not too blazing hot as we left Camp Verde and headed for our first stop in Pine, AZ on Highway 260 East. That was a pretty road.  I'd do that road again in a heart beat.  Plenty of wide open areas with a few sweeps and twisties thrown in for fun. We fueled and got fresh water in Pine and then ventured forth toward Springerville, NM.  The road was great...not too much traffic and plenty of beautiful mountains to see...with green trees!

Springerville found us at a nice motel right off the main road with a great little cafe right next door.
The free breakfast was pretty good and while eating, I started a conversation with a couple who were from South Africa and Rhodesia. After telling them about Lizzy's interest in foreign languages and cultures, they said they would love to meet her.  It was very cool to see Lizzy being talked to in Zulu and in Africanz.  Lizzy was pretty impressed and added those to languages to her journal of languages and cultures that she has now met and heard.

We headed to Ruidoso, NM with the end in sight..well after a 327 mile trip, that is.  This was the long stretch at the end of the trip, but we just had hunker down and do it.

Pie Town was interesting...nothing there except two pie shops and a small gift store.  We went into the gift shop, bought some small items and visited with the owners before having a piece of pie at the Pio-Neer.  I had peach with raspberry.  It was, by my pie standards, just OK.  Off we go to San Antonio, NM where we picked up Highway 380.  HOT!  HOT!  HOT. The store attendant where we fueled said the freeway entrance to Highway 380 was closed and gave us directions to go around. Well....the directions may have worked at one time, but 15 minutes later the road ended in a dead end and we had to turn around and go back...it's HOT!!  Turns out, the entrance was not closed and we scooted onto Highway 380 toward our destination of Ruidoso, NM.

Stars and Stones....as we wind into Ruidoso it was raining.  Not hard...but definitely rain. We are dirty, tired and hungry...pizza room service!

Eli and John arrived around 9:30...warmed up pizza, took showers, watched a little TV...we all crashed! We head for Billy the Kid trail and home of Smokey The Bear tomorrow before arriving at home.  Last night on the road.