The day’s events in narrative.

            About two days into our 2009 journey, our flashing light on the top of the trailer stopped working as did our trailer’s running lights. Yesterday, Abel took a little time out to drop the trailer at a shop that said they’d have it fixed this morning. We woke up early in anticipation of a good morning ride on the Bosque trail where we were supposed to meet a few other riders from Albuquerque. That plan was quickly scrapped when the shop called and needed to have the truck to finish working on the trailer. A nice employee from the shop commandeered a van and took Abel to his house and Doc and AJ to the hotel. AJ and Doc waited for Abel to call when the truck was ready which was guaranteed to be done by noon. AJ called the hotel desk and asked for a late check-out which was approved.

            At around 12:30, Abel called to tell us that the shop didn’t have any good magazines and to say he was hungry. That’s about the same time that the hotel maids began knocking on the door to see if the rooms had been vacated and asked us to leave so they could finish the 2^nd floor rooms. 1:00ish came and went with no word on the truck situation while Doc, AJ, and AJ’s mom waited in the hotel lobby. Finally, Abel pulls up with the truck and trailer around 2. While packing the suitcases into the trailer, Abel tried to turn on the caution light---WHICH DIDN’T WORK.

Soooooooooo, we packed up and went to Abel’s house to get his luggage and, afterward, were going to go back to the shop to get the light re-fixed. At Abel’s house, AJ noticed that she didn’t have her phone which caused a slight panic. It was nowhere to be found so the decision was made to call the hotel and ask if it had been found. Four phone calls later, the phone had finally been found outside where it had dropped out of AJ’s spandex cycling shorts leg. At that point, the group turned around and retrieved the phone (along with 4 delicious, warm-from-the-oven cookies) and then headed to the trailer shop. On the way, we got lost at least 17 times but we passed a Dunkin’ Donuts that made Doc’s ears wiggle.

When we arrived at the trailer shop, at last, we waited for a few minutes at the shop before the guy that had worked on the trailer was available. When he came out, his first question was “Was the truck running when you tried to work the lights?” to which Abel answered, “HUH?”. Let’s just say that we all felt a little bit stupid (bless our hearts). We gave the light a try with the truck running and, of course, it worked. We thanked the shop again and then headed to Dunkin’ Donuts to get Doc his coffee fix of the day. After the coffee was in hand, we had to find a tire shop as we had somehow managed to pick up a giant nail in the front passenger tire. The guys at Peerless Tires were awesome and fixed our tire at no charge but it took yet another 45 minutes out of our Tuesday.

Since the day was pretty much blown, Abel decided to stop and get a haircut in the best neighborhood in Albuquerque while the others locked themselves in the truck and prayed that nobody could see them looking out of place. By the time all the work on the truck was done, Doc got coffee, and Abel had been shorn, it was 4:00 and we hadn’t even thought about riding a bike or begun to travel to Farmington to see Cliff and Annie (AAA alumni 2007). We gassed up, grabbed a quick snack (nobody had any lunch), and headed north. We arrived in Farmington, NM at 8:30, ate dinner, did an abbreviated “get caught up” with our wonderful hosts, and hit the sack. This, my friends, is life on the road and we wouldn’t have it any other way. 

We’d like to give a shout-out to Peerless Tires in Albuquerque for fixing us up and getting us on the road without even having to displace Queenie and the Princess in the back seat.