Day 20
August 24, 2010
Tulsa, OK to Clinton, OK: 192 Miles

I spent the first half of the day working and watching a massive thunderstorm roll through. Headed out of Tulsa around noon as it was clearing off and having been warned of the construction on turnpike, chose the old Route 66 to Oklahoma City and then I-40 as far as Clinton.

Route 66 reminded me of most two-lane highways with one major exception: almost no traffic. And most of 40 looked about like this:

Other photo

Time to head back to my mountains!

Day 21
August 25, 2010
Clinton, OK to Tucumcari, NM: 285 Miles

Another half-day of work and half day of riding got me to Tucumcari. I saw a lot of this:

And arrived at camp just in time for moonrise, which my iPhone camera couldn’t quite capture.

How civilized, this campsite even had electricity!

Day 22
August 26, 2010
Tucumcari, MN to Pagosa Springs, CO: 331 Miles

An early start got me into Northern New Mexico where you can at least see the mountains.

Back on sightseeing mode, I took Hwy 68 north to Taos and then across the Rio Grande Gorge on Hwy 64.

I successfully, through no direct fault of my own, dodged the rain again all the way through the National Forrest on 64.

I guess I got in too big a hurry, because I finally caught up with the rain and experienced about 10 minutes of downpour right around the turn at Chama. The storm was moving east, so if I had been about 10 minutes later I would have missed that too. Oh well, the raingear would have been disappointed not to have gotten used.

Too late to make it all the way to Durango, I stopped in Pagosa Springs.