New Mexican Canyons

Today we got the FJR on the road.  It was just a short Breakfast ride to Jemez Springs then up into the hills for a bit.

CnC n Feejer

Following Jack to get used to right-side riding, we made our way out of Albuquerque and met up with Jeff on the outskirts.  Jack and Linda were on their Triumph Tiger 800XC and Jeff on his BMW 1200 GS.  I must say the beemer looks better under him than the tiny WeeStrom, no matter that he loved the Wee for its ease of use.
Up the 550 for a little ways then turn off towards Jemez Springs.  This little town straddles a small river and is nestled in a steep canyon.   We stopped here for breakfast.  Charleen had a short stack of blueberry pancakes - although she did order something different - and I had a more traditional breakky.
Five of us well fed for under $50.  Bargain.

Bar across from our cafe

Mountains and canyons ahead

Then it was a little ride up into the mountains towards Fenton Lake in the Santa Fe National Forest.  There had been recent fires in the area so several picnic areas were closed and we saw lots of fire-fighting vehicles.  Most of them seemed to be returning home as the worst of it was over.

We got our speed checked.

Fenton Lake

Active mountains - slowly falling down.

Then it was back the way we came down into the canyon, but Jack hadn't finished showing us things yet.  A side road took us up past spectacular red mountains along a narrowing road up in to a seemingly dead end canyon.  We eventually came across two tunnels carved in to the rocky hills. We guessed originally built for a railroad.

Inspecting the tunnels

The three bikes

The creek beside the tunnels cascades in to pools.

Back out to Hwy 550 again and we made our way back to ABQ (as we locals write to avoid typing Albuquerque).  Jeff left us at the intersection to ride to his side of the sprawling city and we went through acres of lands under development.

Home again, we eventually made our way to an AT&T shop to attempt to get local sims for the phones.  We really only want them for data usage.  But after a brief talk and a long wait we gave up.  A version in Walmart was also suspect as to what they would do to our phone, so we decided against.
We can still be contacted via text message on our normal numbers and usually data is pretty good at motels. So we'll leave it at that.

The rest of this evening was spent stuffing our stuff into the Yamaha saddlebags and our Givi topbox.  We managed to squeeze in all we will need for the next few weeks, so in the morning, we're off.........

It WILL fit - it WILL fit.