Sunday Aug 14th, 2011

Jarhead decided it would be nice to bring us on rt 540 to see the kind of roads they have around them to ride on.   This road was actually very beautiful.  Aside from the twists, curves, deer and horse in the road, we stopped at Devil's Den Park.  Very nice scenery.  This quick 30 min of detour started our day nicely.  The weather was beautiful as we headed across Oklahoma.  Very flat and not really much to see.  We were issued a warning by the very nice and generous state trooper of Oklahoma.  Continuing further we reached our site seeing destination in Groom Texas.  This is the tallest cross in the US.  The people of Groom donated some land to a metal smith who in turn casted statues of the last days of Jesus.  These were very humbling.  We also noticed while in Texas that there were a lot of hitch hiker's along the highway.  Apparently it is legal to walk along the interstate.  Riding into New Mexico the scenery changes a bit.  Eastern NM is mostly flat while the western part is quite beautiful with rolling mountains. The entire state is brown dirt, with a sprinkling of green bushes.  What is neat is to see the difference between their mountains and our mountains.  It does make me appreciate the beauty of Virginia's green, green trees.  Real trees, not some small bushes.  We finally made it to our final destination of the day, Santa Rosa, NM.  Not much to see as we just basically crashed for the night, after rolling in just after dark. Total mileage...632

this is Devils Den that Jarhead took us to see the morning we left his place, Westfork, Arizona

Groom Texas

above and below just texas and NM