Desert-Forest-Desert

After spending a very pleasant Sunday morning visiting with the friends at the Carlsbad Kingdom Hall, we went back to the Motel 6, changed, then headed out towards White Sands.


The scenery for most of our trek was desert and more desert. Although it is dry and scrubby, the landscape has this sort of stark beauty one can really get into. I had to make a quick stop to put on my ear plugs, then had to catch up with the pit crew and Dennis. 


As I rode across this barren stretch, I was the only person for miles around. Probably. Once caught up, we took a break between Artersia and Alamogordo.



Nothing but scrub brush and cacti as far as the eye could see. We soaked our cooling vests, refilled our neck bands with ice, and tackled the second half of the trip. 


After we entered the Lincoln National Forest, we realized it was getting chilly. No, make that cold. Really cold. And cacti had given way to pine trees. That's when we noticed we had been steadily climbing and were now above 8,000 feet! The smell of those pine trees was amazing. It made us particularly glad that we were on our bikes.


With the higher elevations there was a sharp drop in temperature. It dropped from over 100 to 65 in a little more than 1 hour - the time it took to get from Hope to Cloudcroft, NM. And we were still wearing our hot-weather gear. With the windchill, we were shivering. It was so cold we had to stop and trade our mesh pants and jackets for our heavier Draggin' Jeans and Tourmaster jackets right there on the side of the road - next to Hollywood Blvd.... New Mexico.


After a butt-freezing ride, we emerged into desert again! A very odd ride indeed. But the view on the other side was breathtaking!

Exiting Lincoln National Forest, heading towards Alamogordo