Truckin' to Tucumcari, New Mexico

Finally time to bring my bike into the shop to get a new tire. My old tire was pretty much smooth in the middle with no tread whatsoever. A stupid new tire costs like 300 bones but with the 'summer discount' we got one for 200 bones. Still ridiculous if you ask me. Supposedly only a few bikes use this tire and the one this shop has in stock is a 'special' one that is better than stock.

Brought the bike in around 9am and were told it wouldn't get done til 1pm. Lemon, another late start. Fortunately we planned for a late start and have only 160 miles to Tucumcari.
Got some more oil for my bike too. It was running low and took about a quart to fill it up. So now my bike is 'safe' again and i can cruise as fast as i want without worrying about dying...as much.

We were on a little bit of the historic route 66 and its marked by these fancy signs. Not only does it say its route 66 but its the route before 1937, gangsta yo.
Route 66 is a little weird in New Mexico...you'll be following it and all of a sudden it just ends and you're forced to hop back on the interstate to get wherever you are going.

Most of the ride today was on the interstate as there wasn't much to see on bits of route 66 to Tucumcari so it was kind of boring. The worst part of the ride today was running into construction that lasted what seemed like 20 miles. Drives me nuts only going 60 mph behind a semi pulling a tank that reflects the sun in your face.

When we reached our Econo Lodge in Tucumcari we saw some bikes. Not just any bikes, Vulcans! Just like mine! Well one was just like mine. The other bike was a Kawasaki Drifter with a side car decked out in all kinds of stuff. They were from Ontario...figures, silly canadians.

Indian wanna be...

i need to get me a side car...who wouldn't want to jump into one of those??

Since i'm on a roll on finding good places to eat, i decided to find a place for dinner. The only problem, is that Tucumcari sucks. There was only one place besides Denny's with reviews. No one ever goes to Denny's so we decided to try this Del's Restaurant.

For most of the meals you get to hit up the salad bar for soup and (of course) salad. They had two kinds of soup..pinto bean soup and green chilli chicken soup. The pinto bean looked disgusting so i got a cup of green chilli. Surprisingly it was delicious. It had big chunks of what i thought were chicken and enough spice to make it interesting.
i've decided i need aderall/ritalin or something when i go to the salad bar because i can't make up my mind on what i want and i end up making a hodge podge of crap. If the 'salad' below looks gross...that's because it is. But i was so hungry from not eating anything all day i finished it.
For dinner, not sure what i was thinking. i wanted to get something light and i end up ordering the chicken fried steak. Its like the heaviest thing on the menu. i just had to try it. It was pretty bad. i guess the center of the steak was good but who thought deep frying a steak was good for you?? i thought i was going to have a heart attack after finishing it.
No idea where we're going tomorrow. Maybe i'll be able to hit up that texas ranch for their 72 oz steak...stay tuned to find out! Same bat time! Same bat channel!