Via Mexico: Chapter 1

      December 24th, 2009, 6 am, cold, dark and rainy.  Motorcycles packed and ready.  Kickstands up and we were off.  The destination was Puerto Vallarta, Mexico.  Typically, leaving the comfort of your own home at a time like this to embark on a motorcycle adventure would seem ubsurd.  But, knowing that our destination would provide us with a warm comfortable sun made it all worth while.  

     The idea for this trip stemmed out of an invitation from a mutual friend to come down and enjoy the new house he had just purchased in the little town of Bucerias, just outside of Puerto Vallarta.  Michael and I discussed everything from routes, time needed, date to leave, time to cross the border, safety measures and many other details.  We planned and prepared as best we could knowing we would be on the road for up to two months in a foreign country.  We acknowledged and promptly dismissed the warnings from family and friends about the dangers of crossing the border, and eventually, we got all the details ironed out and it was time to go.  

      It was a cold, dark, wet morning, the forecast was looking bleak,  but we would not be deterred.  Our emotions were a mix of excitement, concern and curiosity about what we would encounter.  So, with no more hesitation and a grin on our face, we rolled out.  It started to rain within the first mile, but at least it wasn't snow we thought.  That would change just south of Denver when the rain did eventually transform to snow.  With temperatures now in the 20's and snow falling, we found our stops to warm up becoming more and more frequent along with conversations regarding our intelligence level.  But alas, the weather broke as we were approaching Las Vegas, New Mexico.  We pulled into town for a bite to eat, enjoy the warmer temps now in the 30's and prepare for our final push into Albuquerque.  

      Turns out that we were in no way in the clear with regards to weather.  Almost immediately upon leaving Las Vegas the snow rolled back in, and this time, with a vengeance.  It was not only snowing, it was blowing sideways.  The gusty cross winds were drifting the now substantial amount of snow onto the interstate forcing down our speeds and pushing us as far right as we could get.  At this point we found ourselves crawling along at 20mph on packed snow.  Luckily, as we were about to be passed by a local in a pick up truck, he quickly acknowledged the dangerous situation we were in and volunteered to tuck in behind us to help control traffic.  The gentleman followed us for 50 miles until we exited for fuel, at which point we exchanged a friendly wave of appreciation.  We exited slowly and carefully eased our way into the gas station where we promptly parked our bikes and found shelter inside with a warm cup of coffee.  At this time we had to honestly assess our situation and decide what to do next.  We checked the weather scanners, spoke to truckers coming from the south as well as other drivers.  From what we could tell, if we made it another 20 miles or so south the snow would turn back to rain and we would soon be in Albuquerque.  We hesitantly decided to press on and sure enough, the snow did finally stop falling and the roads cleared up a bit.  From here we were able to simply sit back, relax and finish our day by exiting for downtown Albuquerque.  

       Albuquerque is a rough town, and we were reminded of this almost immediately.  Our goal for the night was to find a warm room and a hot meal, seemed simple enough.  We found a hotel on the west end of downtown by the name of Hotel Blue.  Hotel Blue was a nice enough place but more importantly it had a fenced, locked parking lot to ease our concerns for the safety of our bikes overnight.  We went inside, booked a room, then went back out to park our bikes in the safety of the secured parking area.  As we pulled in and stopped in our parking space we noticed what appeared to be a cracked out enraged gang banger pounding his fists on the fence and yelling obscenities at us.  Sitting there staring at each other in disbelief, Michael and I quickly assessed our situation and decided to shut down our motorcycles.  This, in hindsight, turned out to be a bad idea.  The thug took this as a sign that we were down for an impromptu boxing match and managed to follow a car into the parking lot.  Now, here we were, locked inside the fence with this fist throwing, crack riddled gangbanger looking for a little entertainment...........................