Sore Muscles, Ribeye, & Strawberry Shortcake

May 13, 2019: 2nd Leg Alburquerque, NM to Amarillo, TX

9:00 am: Sleeping deeply as if I had a clear conscience I wake up to muscles I never knew I had protesting yesterday’s first 400+ mile ride. Thank goodness for unlimited hot hotel water and gaba pentin! Soon I’m packed and back on the I-40 eastbound for Amarillo, TX and The Big Texan Steak RANCH, home of the 4.5 lb steak, loaded bake potato, 3 shrimp, and a side salad–all to be eaten in 60 minutes or less. Fail and meal costs $74.00. I’ll play it safe and stick with a ribeye, medium rare, thanks!

The ride across New Mexico’s high desert covered with blue-green sage brush to the horizon is a picture-perfect ride: temp is in the mid- to high seventies, with occasional shade from the ‘fluffy puffies’ high overhead. The road is silky smooth and traffic sparse…as are the radio stations. So I’m content with belting out the word I know to classic country songs while making up the lyrics I can remember. A pit stop just west of the Texas state line and Raven is purring away towards the Lone Star state…

6:00 pm: I arrive and park Raven directly across from her 25-year older sister, a ‘vintage’ H-D Road Glide and her owner Jerry Hall, a fellow cancer survivor and retired business owner from Merced, CA who is checking off his bucket list. Jerry has ridden to Fairbanks, AK, beyond the Arctic Circle, and he plans to ride to Prudhoe Bay at the end of the AlCan Highway.

Jerry also knows my former deputy sheriff training officer-who-eventually-ended-up-in-federal-prison-for-dealing-in-stolen-HD-motorcycles-and-parts–but that’s another story for another day…

The 21 oz. ribeye was more than I could eat at one sitting (cowboy beans, fried okra (free), loaded baked potato, and hot yeast rolls notwithstanding), so it will be a well-marbled and perfectly grilled ribeye for breakfast…oh, and the strolling guitar-fiddle duo were not too shabby either. Time to find a room and settle in the the night…safe travels, my new ‘brother’ Jerry!

10:00 am: Of course The Big Texan Hotel is right next door with an available ground floor room! A hot shower and I’ll be resting t like the walking dead, if and when they sleep…without the smell of cadavers, of course!