my precious baby, originally uploaded by pinkyracer.

feels soooo good to get out and stretch my baby’s legs! Big Bend, TX is the perfect place to blow out the cobwebs on an R1, that’s for sure. Soft sweepers and big long straights and nobody around for miles. I thought about going into Mexico, even stopped at the border and asked if it was a good idea. The cop couldn’t tell me whether to go or not, but did choose to mention the day’s murder rate as an indicator. It was 1 today and 1 yesterday. Probably a tad higher (per capita) than LA. So I said “Is that due to the drug war we keep hearing about?” and he gave a very professionally noncommittal answer that suggested I was jumping to the right conclusion. So I turned around and headed into Big Bend park, thinking I’d do this fun little loop I saw on the map. Yeah. Like they do anything little in Texas…

That little loop is 231 miles, so instead I went back the way I came which was only 158 miles.
So I got a little ways into the park and realized I’d probably run out of gas long before I came upon a gas station. I pulled out my trusty iphone to consult google maps, to see if perhaps for some strange reason they had a gas station in this national park. When I saw that I had no signal, I knew the prudent thing would be to turn around and get some gas in Presidio, then enjoy the northbound route of the same road I’d taken. I hate to retrace my steps, but my complete lack of planning necessitated it. It was a better idea anyway, as I was able to completely avoid the thunderstorm brewing in the east. It was fun going through the double-check border station just outside of Marfa. I stopped, and the guard asked me “Ma’am, are you a US Citizen?” Since I look about as Mexican as Cameron Diaz, they took my “yeahhhh” at face value. 🙂