Day 9

Sufficiently rested, Mutt N Mutter set out for the second leg of their trip home on Saturday, hopeful that they had experienced the worst day of their adventure.  Sadly, those hopes would be dashed.  But more about that later.  We headed westward, conveniently rolling into Amarillo, Texas, at lunchtime.  Anyone who has traveled through this area knows that there is only one place to eat when you're in Amarillo, the Big Texan Steak Ranch, where there are approximately 347 signs between Oklahoma City and Amarillo reminding you that the 72 oz steak is free!  There's one small catch - you have to eat the entire thing.  And they mean the entire thing.  Meat, fat, gristle, probably even the bones, plate, and silverware too.  Otherwise you shell out 39 bucks.  We opted for Hooters instead, where as chance would have it they were holding a car wash.  A car wash at Hooters?  Say no more!  We pulled in expecting to see something along the lines of this:

Hard to beat Hooters girls washing your car!

Uhhh, that's not exactly what we found.  Instead we found the local……ummm….."help" eagerly waiting to clean you out….errrr, your car.  

If you don't let us wash your car, we will kill your women!

We passed.  Lunch was tasty, though, and the fact that it took nearly two hours to order and serve a couple of sandwiches didn't bother us one bit.

Hmmm, where did I pack that rain suit?

Having escaped Hooters with our bikes, dirt, and belongings intact we set off for New Mexico.  Fortunately the trip was relatively uneventful.  We were able to make it to Gallup, New Mexico when rain appeared in the distance.  We decided that our day's journey had come to an end, and we searched for a place to stay for the night.  We considered the Quality Suites, the Hampton Inn, even the Regal 8.  And rejected them.  No, we preferred to get a room where we could park the bikes outside the door.  This would enable us to both keep an eye on the bikes and minimize the distance that we would have to lug our gear.  In that latter endeavor we succeeded.  As far as quality in accommodations we failed.  Greatly.  In terms of adventure, it will likely remain unmatched forever.  The Roadway Inn had a nice ring to it we thought.  Wrong.  The Gallup, New Mexico Roadway Inn is the kind of place where busts on the TV show Cops take place, where raids occur on a regular basis, where high speed pursuits end, - the only difference being that we still had our shirts on.  To say that this place is a flea bag is to say that Jerry Sandusky has a slight image problem.  The cars in the parking lot looked like the hand-me-downs from a demolition derby.  

Prepped for paint in 1973.

Guess there was traffic to the right.

From the primer gray Maverick (when is the last time you saw a Maverick?) to the car next to us with the dangling right side mirror and unusual antenna it was like finding one's self in a Cuban used car lot/salvage yard.  

A little tape should make that door look just like new.

Of special interest was the car whose door had rotted away, a vain attempt to repair it having been made using cellophane boxing tape.  

The hotel was located literally on the other side of the tracks - by about five feet.  Freight trains roared by with the frequency of Detroit Lion arrests, threatening to suck our Road Glides into the vacuum created by 180 car trains screaming by at 120 mph.  

Incredibly, our room was worse.  The "coat rack" consisted of a 2 by 4 nailed to the wall with picture hangers for coat hooks, only one of the lamps worked, and we're pretty sure that the chair had recently been used to perform abortions.  

Deluxe coat rack - for coats
that resemble pictures.

What could this chair possibly been used for?

The bathroom was devoid of soap and had no toilet paper.  Apparently drugs deals require none of these conveniences.  We decided to strip the bikes of every removable part and keep them in the room - where the lamps, coat racks and toilet paper would have been.  Fearing for our lives we decided that it would be best to get to bed and steal out of there as early as feasible.  We drifted off to sleep as the soothing roar and rumble of the adjacent freight trains lulled us into a restful assault on every one of our senses.  

Hope I don't "loose" my change
in the soda machine.

That train was much closer than it appears.

Things we learned today:

• The Cherokee Nation has embraced capitalism.
• Old gray American cars, moving or stationary are not to be trusted.
• Heat affects stick deodorant negatively.