After more than two days of droning across the desert as quickly as possible, Big Bend Ranch State Park was a great big breath of fresh air. Our Spyders were loaded with Christmas presents, clothes and camping gear. Photos by Kurt Yaeger.
So…do we fly" Or do we ride"
Kurt and I were staring at a map of the Southwest, planning a visit to his family in Austin, Texas, for Christmas. Our eyes shifted from Southern California to central Texas and back, mental gears turning in anguish. Via the thick, blue, rather straight line of Interstate 10, Austin is 1,433 miles from Camarillo, and we had only 10 days total. At least three of those had to be reserved for the actual family visit, which was, after all, the whole point.
We?d be leaving on the evening of December 21, the shortest day of the year, meaning our riding time would be abbreviated and cold. And of course it was winter; snow isn?t exactly unheard of in Texas hill country, and it was almost guaranteed if we ventured off the Interstate into the higher altitudes of New Mexico and Arizona. So of course we rode.
Map of the route taken, by Bill Tipton/compartmaps.com. The pink line is the outbound route, the red is the return.
By the morning of day two, as we silently trooped back and forth with our gear through clouds of our own exhalations, I was glad we?d opted to take a pair of Can-Am Spyders. We were packing up to leave my mom and stepdad?s 80-acre Sky Ranch, outside Deming, New Mexico, where we?d stayed t...