From Chinle, it was a long, beautiful and confusing day. We are staying off the interstates this day with over 5.5 hours of riding plus stops for gas and food. AND on the Navajo reservation, it is expected you know the roads. Major two-digit highways are occasionally marked, but when you need to turn at Torreon Mission Road, Power Line Road and on Highway 279, there are NO signs. Zippo el nada brava, my gibberish for “oh, hell, no!”

So I made a wrong turn you can see below. There was a fork in the road, it was not yet 1.7 miles from the mission, so I took the NEXT left and ended up on a 30 mile/45 minute circle back to the mission. 5 miles in, I thought I knew, but, well, wherever you go, there you are.

Maps on a bike without new GPS features (and mine is a 2012 BMW R1200GS and the best EVER, but lacking those features), is necessarily a set of directions. You’d need to develop some weird set of smaller maps by hand and have some method of flipping on the tank bag. Not happening.

… you print out directions

So here was my decision….

On Albuquerque

What a beautiful setting when you ride in from the north. I had several leads on private clubs and music clubs to check out. My Uncle Harold had lived here after WW II and always told the motivating story of going to the car dealership for a job. They said, “no.” Harold-y, my mom’s super-positive brother, told the hiring manager…, “Put me on for a week for free. If you don’t think you want to pay me for what I can do, I’ll eat my crow and go on my way.” He worked there for years as a top salesman before moving back North where he was most comfortable. I loved visiting Bellingham, WA and the Skagit Valley, particularly after the loss of my Dad so young. Harold was just THE most positive person on the planet. “You can put your shoes under our guest bed ANY time!!!” When he passed, Lynn and I went to the service, some 27 years ago. It truly was a celebration of a great human being. The pastor, who Harold helped recruit to his church, was telling us of his many “Harold moments.” He said when being recruited, he just could not say “no” to this man. With tongue firmly in cheek and a big smile on his tear-stained face, he told us how Harold would tell him the same thing every single Sunday. “’Father, if you need any help with the sermon today, just let me know…, I’m READY!’ And every Sunday, he told him, ‘Harold, I have problems enough!’”

I have never done more than drive through Albuquerque, so I had high hopes for finding potential spots for a For the Song chapter in the future. I visited a couple possibilities, but felt like it was not a great fit. The best outcomes came from meeting the folks at the local music club and from Jane, my AirbnB host and her two dogs, Gus and Addie.

It was a hot air balloon week when people all over the town were getting up at 5am to see the show. Uhhh, no, I had things to do. But when I had completed my days, I was treated to a private and quiet living room with two kind dogs and the baseball playoffs each evening. It was a nice way to recharge after two long rides with another upcoming. We’ll have to check out Santa Fe in later times. There is not an Entrada of Snow Canyon here to pair with the very cool LaunchPad music club.