VICE PRESIDENT ARTICLE
VICE PRESIDENT ARTICLE
By JOHN Ogden Jr
ARIZONA STATE RALLY heard Arizona was doing a state
I rally in November and thought it would be a nice trip . I helped sell Holly on the idea of riding the bikes by saying it would be a nice ride and a good time riding across the South . This time of the year isn β t too hot , and there will be many scenic areas to see . She agreed , and wouldn β t you know it , a freak cold front blew through and dropped temperatures to 20-30 degrees . Man , I may have oversold the nice weather part , but I kept my promise of cool weather . We left midday , and the temperature wasn β t too bad , with the sun warming us . It seems when the sun is out bright , it really helps to fight the cold .
The next day offered even cooler weather and just 600 miles . That is an easy day for us , normally . I failed to consider the later departure time and the shorter day . In the summer , this mileage is no problem because it is light for so long ; not so easy on the short days of late fall and with tourist stops to look at . To make matters worse , my GoPro fell off my bike , and we looked for it for more than 30 minutes without luck . Then Holly β s passenger backrest fell off , to which I heard , β I β m too cold to get off the bike and pick it up .β She was frozen to the bike . This was not going according to plan for Holly or me .
That β s ok cause I had a surprise for her . A nice restaurant sits atop Cloud Croft , and I was taking her for a meal . This thought settled me on the inside , knowing I may be able to pull this off yet . We arrived and headed up the hill to get a bite to eat . β She β ll be impressed because this isn β t my normal holein-the-wall Mexican place β I thought . We walked in , cold and hungry , only to find out they were closed until 5 pm . Neither of us wanted to wait that long , so back down we went to get food elsewhere . To my surprise , nothing was open , so we headed down to Alamogordo , New Mexico . I didn β t do so well picking that restaurant , but it was a warm place , and it was food .
We made it to Butterfield Stage Motel in Deming , New Mexico . The owners were great , and the room was clean and reasonably priced . This was the bright spot in the day . I reminded Holly of the scripture of forgetting those things which are behind . I promised her a shorter day tomorrow , much warmer temperatures , and a historic Tombstone stop . This day was much better except for the route I took through Tucson . Traffic is not really my happy place , and there was enough to go around , but it 22βͺJANUARY 2024βͺwww . cmausa . org