October27- 30, 2024

With a nearly ten-hour drive ahead of us we got an early start, and this time had smooth sailing all the way to Portales, where we’d spend two nights visiting with Kemet.  We would stay at the Holiday Inn Express & Suites Portales, which was a Best Western the last time we were in town.  Portales is home to Eastern New Mexico University which opened in 1934 and has since grown to become the third-largest university in the state.  Kemet is the Director of Alumni Affairs there and during our last visit we took a brief tour of the campus. 

The area is one of the largest producers of Valencia peanuts in the United States and is the nation’s top producer of certified organic peanut butter.  Portales is home to about 40 dairies and a major US dairy solids plant, together producing and exporting hundreds of millions of dollars of local milk products each year.  And we would see plenty of cows as we drove in and out of town. 

We checked in to the Holiday Inn, and then met Kemet at the Cattle Baron for dinner.  After being seated and ordering, Joanna would enjoy the Green Chili Stew (top sirloin, green Chile tomatoes. Served with a flour tortilla.) while I had the Filet Mignon with a baked potato, which was good, particularly at just $34.  Along the way a gin and tonic and very reasonably priced glasses of Pinot Noir were consumed.  All in all, it was a satisfying and filling meal. 

During our last visit we’d explored most of what is interesting to do in the immediate area and so the next day we ventured about 40 miles east into Texas to the thriving metropolis of Muleshoe.  Never heard of it?  Well, neither had we, but in the end we made the effort as our destination there was the Muleshoe Heritage Center.  It’s pretty easy to find the place as a giant Muleshoe sits at the entrance and shares the parking lot with a 23-foot-tall steel arrow that along with others like it, marked the sites where the area’s Comanche Indians hunted, traded, lived and fought. 

We introduced ourselves to the employee in the office who, although it was late in the day and she needed to pick up her grandchild from school, proceeded to guide us around the site, letting us into a number of the building and houses there, including the Figure 4 Ranch House, the Yellow Jacket Inn, the Dugout and finally, the Janes Ranch House. 

The Janes House was built by John Janes for his wife Anna in the early 1900’s and became the center of social activity in the sparsely populated area.  It had steam heat, electricity, the luxury of two bathrooms and running water.  Anna died of influenza in 1918, and Janes sold all his cattle and leased out his 52,000-acr(about 82 square miles) ranch, keeping the house for use in the summers. 

We finished up in Muleshoe and returned to Portales to spend the evening at Kemet’s place where he cooked us a delicious dinner of Cajun Chicken and Shrimp pasta which we enjoyed while watching The Goonies movie, enjoying wine, and each other’s company knowing that it would be some time before we would be able to gather again. 

The next two days would each feature around eight hours of driving, first to Flagstaff and then on to home.  We decided to get an early start so we could make a stop along the way at the Billy the Kid Museum in Fort Sumner, about halfway on state highways 60 and 64 to the junction with Interstate 40 at Santa Rosa.  This privately owned museum is much larger than it appears from the outside and contains an incredible number of items on display, with just a portion devoted to Billy the Kid

When you first enter the initial couple of rooms contain the information and artifacts about the Kid, who was a frequent visitor in Fort Sumner where the 21-year-old outlaw was shot to death in 1881 by Lincoln County Sheriff, Pat Garrett.  One item in the museum is a rifle that belonged to him, along with the documentation.  Other interesting things are the door Billy backed through the night he was slain and two curtains that came out of Pete Maxwell’s bedroom where Billy was shot.  Also, on display are the chaps and spurs Billy liked to wear to dances, as he was a very good dancer and singer and was much admired by the young ladies.

The museum’s collection includes antique cars, wagons, and buggies along with a horse drawn hearse and memorabilia from the once Fort Sumner military fort.  One will also stumble through many rooms housing antique typewriters, saddles, old appliances, and any number of timeworn items of interest .  We easily spent a couple of hours here and could have devoted more time, but the road beckoned and we were soon on our way to Flagstaff and the Best Western Pony Soldier Inn and Suites, where we have stayed before. 

Perhaps because of our rewards status we were assigned the same two room suite we had before, which means storing the bikes is much easier.  Given the long drive and the detour to the museum, we didn’t feel like driving in downtown and so opted to walk around the block to Golden Dragon Chinese Cuisine restaurant for our last dinner of the trip.  We started off with a bottle of Tsing Tao beer apiece to wash down our Pupu Platter (2 spring rolls, 2 crab puffs, 2 chicken sticks). 

It was all good and a perfect lead into the entrée we split, the Chicken with Mixed Vegetables (Sliced white meat chicken sauteed with zucchini, broccoli, water chestnuts, bamboo, mushrooms, snow peas, onion, and carrots in brown sauce).  We managed to eat almost all of it, taking just a bit back to the room to ferry home in the ice chest.  The tab came to a very reasonable $60, well worth it for the quality of the food and the excellent service we received. 

Our final leg to home went smoothly, with a short stop for lunch at the In-N-Out in Barstow.  We’d be home for just a couple of days to fill out and mail in our ballots for the presidential election, then head north to Oakland to see Jessica, Kris and little Gemma.  Our two months on the road, which had started out lousy with us catching Covid had, as most trips do, turned out well with a number of highlights and the beginnings of me getting back on the bike as I began the long process getting into better physical shape. 

Overall, we drove nearly 8,100 miles, needing two oil changes (Kansas City and Lafayette) with just a few very long (ten hours or more) days of driving.  Total cost of lodging was 4,968 ($79 a day) 43% of total trip cost, quite low due to our splitting a few Airbnb nights with family and friends and staying at the homes of others.  Of our 62 nights, 22 were in an Airbnb’s, 12 in hotels, and 28 with family and friends.  The one problem though for us was the 15 days stretch from Durham to Wilmington, when staying with those we know didn’t provide us with any breaks, which we will need to be more cognizant of in the future. 

Total food costs were 4,505 ($72 a day) 39% of total trip cost, gas ran us a total of $1,375, 12% of total trip cost with other expenses (Culture, Misc., Public Transportation and Parking, and Tolls) running a combined $777, or 7% of total cost.  Given the large number of free nights of lodging, our average daily cost of travel of $184 was lower than it would have been if we had to pay for a bed each night.  Then again, the cost of gas offset some of those savings.  Regardless, this won’t be the last long road trip we will take and the joy of seeing family and friends up close and personal is worth whatever the cost. 

Links

Holiday Inn Express & Suites Portales: https://www.ihg.com/holidayinnexpress/hotels/us/en/portales/prlnm/hoteldetail?cm_mmc=GoogleMaps-_-EX-_-US-_-PRLNM

Cattle Baron: https://www.cattlebaron.com/

Muleshoe Heritage Center: https://www.city-of-muleshoe.com/MuleshoeHeritageCenter

Billy the Kid Museum: https://www.billythekidmuseumfortsumner.com/index.html

Best Western Pony Soldier Inn and Suites: https://www.bestwestern.com/en_US/book/hotels-in-flagstaff/best-western-pony-soldier-inn-suites/propertyCode.03002.html

Golden Dragon: https://www.goldendragonflagstaff.net/?utm_source=gmb&utm_medium=website