Where in the world is Brandon OBrien

Wednesday, May 30, 2012 @ 7:00 PM in General Travel

I had a good sleep last night and woke up feeling pretty refreshed. My body was still pretty sore from putting on 700+ miles yesterday but it wasn't too bad. I got all of my gear packed up and started running it down to my bike and loading it up. Before leaving I decided to go down to the breakfast area and had a waffle and apple before hitting the road.

I wanted to top off the tank before leaving and luckily there was a gas station just around the corner where I fueled up. I was out of the gas station by 6:30am and fortunately beat the morning rush hour out of the city. I was back on US-54 before too long and continued my journey westward.

Unfortunately I was back into boring riding areas pretty quickly. Straight, flat and boring made up the majority of the day. I passed some cool clouds in western Kansas and a bunch of huge cattle ranches in Texas. During one of my fuelups I decided to buy a pre-made sandwich at a gas station so I could stop along the side of the road to eat. I figured this would be a lot quicker and cheaper than fast food.

I can't remember exactly where it was, but I stopped at some picnic tables along the side of the road and had some lunch next to three cops waiting for cars to come flying into town where the speed limit dropped from 65 to 35 in the matter of 1/4 of a mile or so.

After a couple more hours I was really starting to get fatigued and tired. I was extremely sore by now and just wanted to get home. I was getting so worn out from the heat and monotonous riding that I finally pulled over after I crossed into New Mexico and had a 5 hour energy to keep me going.

I made it through Tucumcari and was hoping I wouldn't have to fill up again to make it home. Unfortunately I had a rough headwind heading west on I-40 which kinda killed my mileage. My fuel light came on with about 40 miles to go in my ride. Rather than risk it I stopped in Moriarty and got some gas.

I finally made it home, unpacked some of the essentials and set about answering a ton of emails I had built up. Some friends invited me over for a fajitas dinner so I went over and had some fajitas and drinks. I was completely exhausted by like 9:30pm so I headed home to finish writing this report.

Overall the trip was a blast. The riding was a little more than I would have liked each day but now it's something I can cross off my list and say I did.

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