Motocaching the Counties Finale - Part 4

I should mention that when I hooked up with Yancey he had this terrible cold and it lasted the whole trip.  It was about this time that he began sharing it with me.  Mine too, lasted the whole trip and morphed into a sinus infection/flu when I returned home.  In fact, as I write this over a week after I got home I still have a raw throat although I am much better.  I mention this because even without the almost unbearable heat neither of us was feeling that great anyway.

Really hot - the weather

We had an early breakfast in the diner and hit the road trying to get a jump on the heat as much we could.  After leaving Vaughn we stopped at a cache called “S Curve” which was located in a slight S curve on an otherwise straight road.  It was a nano which is super small (about like the last joint of your pinky) and I had given up when Yancey found it.  That was the first of two for Torrance County that we found.  The second was “Enjoy the View” located in a tree with great mountain views in the distance.  The hint was “NM state tree” so I learned that their state tree is the pinon pine.

Double cute

We continued down US 24 toward Las Cruses stopping for a cache called “Half Way to Annie’s” that I had chosen in honor of my granddaughter, Annie, Yancey’s first born.  That took care of Lincoln County for us.  We stopped again before Las Cruses to take care of Otero County.  It was getting really hot.  For the rest of the day my bike thermometer read between 107’ and 109’.  We stopped in a cool restaurant in Las Cruses for lunch.  I had to get a picture of about the cutest little twin girls I’ve ever seen (after getting their parents’ permission).  After lunch we headed north on I-25.  We stopped for a cache in Dona Ana County just to take a break as I had logged one in that county last summer.  At the little town of Garfield we picked up a cache simply called “Garfield” and that took care of Sierra County.

Typical roadside stop

We picked up another cache for this county and Yancey noticed a little convenience store nearby which was in the middle of nowhere that was advertising slushies.  We quickly stripped off our outer gear and hightailed it over there.  The lady running the place was probably in her early 70’s and was a real teaser.  She was a ex Marine and told us a good part of her life’s story.  Those slushies really hit the spot.

We stopped for one more Sierra County cache and then headed into Socorro County.  We picked up two in this county.  One was at a little park just off the Interstate but we didn’t take time to take advantage shade.  It was near another old drive in theatre.  The other one was a cemetery cache near the little town of San Antonio also just off the interstate.  For some reason the graves were really decorated.

We were staying at the Econolodge in Socorro and by this time I was hot, tired and half out of it.  I mistakenly turned into a vacant parking lot just shy of the motel.  I always check to make sure my kick stand is down before dismounting my bike but obviously I didn’t this time so my bike tipped over as I was getting off.  I have crash guards on my bike (essential for me) but I still busted a front blinker lens and broke the end off my clutch lever.  Last year I had broken the

New fancy levers

end off my brake lever when a huge gust of wind blew my parked bike over.  So now they matched.  However, while the shorter brake lever didn’t bother me the shorter clutch lever did.  After getting home I replaced them with some fancy new ones.

 After we picked my bike up we went next door to the motel.  This Econolodge was the nicest motel of the trip.  It had the most complete workout room I’ve ever seen in a motel complete with a shower and sauna.  I got a workout and then swam a few laps in the pool right next to it.  They also served a great breakfast the next morning.  We traveled 366 miles this hottest day of the journey logging 10 caches with 3 DNF’s, the same as the day before.  [To be continued]  M/W