Pre-GoatRun: Day 5

Yesterday I ended-up driving much of the route that I had planned to drive today, so last night I had to do some quick thinking and plan out where I was going to drive today.

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I left my hotel at my normal time (~8:30am) in the morning, and promptly found myself sitting in traffic on the Interstate. Normally this would make me unhappy, but it allowed for some time to check-out the hot air balloons that were dotting the horizon.

This weekend is the annual Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta, so the city is all setup for ballooners. It would have been cool to stick around to see some of the crazy balloons (they come in all sorts of shapes and sizes… including SpongeBob), but I need to get to Las Vegas for GoatRun!

While much of my day was spent driving on the interstate or other uninteresting roads, one section was very entertaining.

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This section of New Mexico 152 was a real blast to drive. I first need to say that the 25 mph speed limit was a total joke… so I didn’t follow it! I didn’t go crazy, but I drove the road at a comfortable pace. I could feel the car straining a little from the high elevation… at over one-and-a-half MILES above sea level, even with a supercharger, I could feel the car was a little down on power.

The corners were mostly sweepers, but there were a few 15 mph and 10 mph hairpins mixed in. I ran a few of the tighter turns in 2nd gear and loved how the car exploded out of the corners… however, because of the low speed limit I spent most of my time in 3rd gear.

For the most part I had an empty road, but a couple times I needed to slow down for large dumb animals (a deer, a steer, and a goober in a Toyota). My favorite part of the road was the length… compared to many of the roads I drove in the Appalachian Mountains, it was two or three times longer… and took almost 30 minutes to complete.

After driving out of the mountains I crossed into Arizona and headed towards my hotel for the night. I spent quite some time driving around looking for a place to take some photos, and eventually found an acceptable location.

With today’s drive, I’ve traveled in all of the states that I will be for this trip…

I’m a little disappointed that I left some gaps in my map, but I didn’t plan my route to “check-off states”. In the future I would really like to take a driving trip up into the Pacific North West and across into the Dakotas… maybe for GONE 2012!

Tomorrow I’m planning on driving a few twisty roads, and many scenic ones. I might make some small changes to the planned route (and potentially where I’m sleeping) to make Friday’s drive into Las Vegas a little more manageable, but I’ve not yet decided.