Sopaipillas

Sopaipillas are one of my favorite things about Albuquerque.

Here we see them pictured with a big plate of carne adovada, another New Mexican specialty. I had to hurry across the street to this restaurant when I finally got settled in my room at about 7:00 pm. They were only open until 7:30. I told the server I hadn't had sopaipillas in 30 years and she brought me two extra. I know they won't be as good later tonight (you really must eat them piping hot and fresh) but I'm sure I'll enjoy them anyway.

Getting to Albuquerque was not easy. I got on the road at 8:30 this morning - 7:30 in New Mexican time. I rode about 550 miles. Almost the entire ride was into strong crosswinds or headwinds. The Ninja 250 is a spirited little bike, but if you throw a 25 MPH headwind at it, it will have difficulty going faster than 60 or 65 MPH. Sometimes less! I spent the entire ride listing about 5 degrees to port to compensate for the crosswind coming from that side. It was very tiring. I'm still a little buzzy and my sense of balance feels like I'm still on the bike.

Going west from Oklahoma City, the countryside was a few farms, a lot of pastures, and big groves of woods. Pretty. As I got closer to the Texas border, the trees got smaller and fewer. At Texona, just before the border, a murmuration of blackbirds lifted from a plowed field and headed on an intercept course. They got very close, all around me, before swerving away.

Here's a link to a Youtube video of a bigger, more numerous murmuration. Very inspiring. Mine was much smaller, but also nice.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOGCSBh3kmM

Texas looked a lot like Oklahoma, at first. But in a few miles the first yucca appeared, then the first mesquite. Dried-up cheatgrass was pale blonde on land recently soaked by rain; all the other plants were greening up. I was going far slower than any other traffic on the road and I got used to being blown around by the combination of crosswinds and the blast from the trucks passing me. As I went west from Amarillo, the landscape flattened until it seemed I could see the curve of the planet. Several miles from the New Mexico border, the plain suddenly ended and the road dropped down into a landscape of caprock and little draws. It was pure desert now, with numerous pencil cholla cactus and mesquite bushes. On the way to Tucumcari the mesas got larger. Farms appeared; must be underground water present. I took about half an hour at Tucumcari because I was feeling totally dragged out. I got some food and soda, gassed up, and got on the way to Albuquerque, 180 miles away. The wind dropped a little but still gusted strong sometimes. Cedars appeared in the red rock mesa landscape. I was feeling a little better. I stopped once for fuel at Moriarty, then went through the foothills of the Sandia Mountains and down into town. Across the street from the motel was the restaurant with the sopaipillas.

Whew, I finished writing this before I fell dead asleep. Tomorrow I will try to do some birding next to the Rio Grande, then set off to... where? Not sure yet. I'll decide in the morning.