Thursday April 14: Santa Rosa - Tucumcari - Logan, 85 mi, 6 hr

The bad things about riding on Interstate 40 (or any interstate) - the fumes and the noise. You can't smell the fumes but it must be like living in NYC since every two seconds a vehicle passes you. And the roar of tires is much louder than the engines.

Rode Interstate 40 from Flagstaff to Tucumcari except for Route 66 from Albuquerque to Moriarty - this section of 66 is probably the closest to what was the old route 66. Well some NM congressman must be on the highway subcommittee because these main streets are now 4 lanes separated by a ten foot median. They burried rte 66.

I helped a motorist on I 40. He had a flat and stripped one of the lug nuts and couldn't get it off. NO I didn't take it off. But I have a list of all the police depts between San Diego and Atlantic City. So we called the Tucumcari police and then got a service station. (I got the list of police stations from the Race Across America website - I'm using most of their route from last year. By the way, Bob (?) Morlock,who is a Danbury policeman, road in that race in 2001 and finished in about 10 days. Look up RAAM on Google to find out more.

Great buffet lunch in Tucumcari! Complete meal and dessert for $7.00 - all I could eat and it was a lot. You really never know when you'll get your next good meal. A few times I've had no breakfast and other times no lunch - simply because nothing was around.

At Tucumcari I finally got off of I40 onto Rte 54. I have been worried about Rte 54 for the last few days because all I read about it was "be careful on this truck route". But it is quiet and has not nearly as much traffic as I thought.

Actually the ride from Tucumcari to Logan was really relaxed. I had all afternoon to ride 20 miles and took my time. I was assured that there were at least 2 motels and restaurants in Logan.