Another Greyhound Adventure

After spending my last night on the bike trip, my host drove me and my boxed up bike to the Greyhound station around 7:30am, since she had to work around 8:00. I knew the bus wasn't supposed to leave for several hours, so I checked in my box and waited. The bike box actually weighed in at 53 pounds, over the limit, but the station attendant let it slide, which probably saved $40 in overweight charges.

Then the fun began. The bus coming in to Roswell was more than two hours later, coming from El Paso. According to the driver it was due to icy roads, but that doesn't really account for all the time. Then, leaving Roswell we were traveling around 30mph down an absolutely clear highway. Finally one of the passengers complained and the driver said there was engine trouble, and it was smoking, so we pulled off the side of the road for her to check something.

When we pulled back on the road the smoking had stopped, but we were still only doing around 30mph, even with the pedal all the way down. The driver announced over the PA that we could either limp along the highway towards Amarillo, or wait for a bus to catch us from El Paso. The Amarillo option was faster, so that is what she was going for.

When we got to the next town the dispatch called her and told her to stop the bus there, and they would send another bus from Amarillo, which would take about 3 hours. Fortunately there was a McDonalds close by, and a Dollar General.

When we finally got to Amarillo we were 8 hours late, so they had to reroute everyone. They did give complementary meal tickets, but they were for the in-station restaurant, which was typical really bad food. When I finally got rerouted they sent me through St. Louis and Cleveland, instead of through Memphis, and I would have to wait about 5 hours for the next bus.

The positive side of the reroute was that from there on out I was on the newer style of bus, including electric outlets and wireless. Also, for some reason the baggage handling policy was different on that schedule, so the handlers would actually move my bike box over to the new bus for me. Usually you have to move it yourself.

The really bad part of the reroute was that instead of getting in around 10:30am in Rochester, I would be getting in at 8:00pm, well after dark. Originally I was planning on riding all the way to my parents house that day (~20 miles), but the darkness changed that around.

One last night

I decided a little while ago that I would be temporarily ending my bike trip, for a couple of reasons. Originally I was going to be working in Florida for the winter, but that fell through. The company wasn't able to figure out if they could insure me or not, since their insurance company never responded to more than a month of calls and emails.

Ending the trip is a bit more complicated than I had originally thought. I had to figure out where I was going to end it, try to set up a warmshowers host, tear apart and box up the bike, and buy a greyhound ticket. Boxing up the bike was definitely the most complicated part of the process.

I ended up deciding on Roswell NM partly because of the greyhound schedules and partly because of warmshowers. If I had ended the trip in Carlsbad it would have meant an extra day on the bus, since the first bus schedule would have taken me back to El Paso, then a roundabout route from there. Instead, I can go more directly from Roswell, and save myself that extra day.

Then came the dilemma of the bike. I figured that any bike shop would be able to supply a bike box, so I wasn't too worried about that aspect. However, when I got into town there was only one small bike repair shop, and they were closed. It seemed likely that they wouldn't have a box anyways, given the type of shop.

I tried behind a Sears, but all of their cardboard was crushed right away, so I went to the dumpsters next door behind a family dollar. Their cardboard wasn't crushed, but it was smaller boxes than I would have liked, but I would have to make due. I ended up grabbing a couple of bigger boxes and tying them on the back of the bike.

Fortunately when I got to my warmshowers host she had planned ahead a bit, since I had emailed that I was hoping to box up the bike. My host had saved several boxes, including a wheel box left behind by previous bikers when they had ordered a new wheel online. Probably the best part though was that her neighbor was visiting her, and mentioned that she had just gotten a mattress, and still had half of the box left over.

I ended up using the mattress box, plenty of packing tape, and a bit of rope to keep the box together. It wasn't a perfect packing job, but after taking the bike all apart the box fit relatively well. The torn apart bike was all taped together, in hopes of reducing damage from greyhound baggage handlers.


And the next morning was a perfect ending to the trip. I had avoided snow the entire trip, and on the last morning I woke up to a wonderful view:

Carlsbad Caverns National Park

Another National Park day, this time just a day trip to Carlsbad Caverns. In the caverns there are a few options for which caves to explore, including self guided and ranger guided trips. I decided to go down the Natural Entrance and then explore the Big Cave, which are both self-guided trips. That covers more than 90% of the actual caverns, so I didn't miss much by skipping out on the ranger guided trips.

The first thing I was impressed by was the sheer scale of the caverns. In the Natural Entrance, you start going down a steep path, and then you just keep going down further and further. Looking up in the caverns gives you a feel for the scale of the caves, but they are gigantic.

Then you start factoring in all of the 'decorations' of the caves, which are the stone structures that have been created over thousands of years. A lot of them are pretty plain, but some are actually quite intricate, with all sorts of ripples, folds, and coloring. The whole cave is lit by electric lights, but in an appropriate way. The lighting lends a feel of being in a cathedral, and everyone tended to talk in whispers.

Probably my best pictures:


See the rest of my Carlsbad pictures here.

Cops

How to make money from cops:

I was riding along the shoulder of I-10 in New Mexico when a cop pulled over in front of me. Since he didn't have his lights going I checked behind me to make sure no trucks were coming, and then just went around him. As I was going by he yelled for me to pull over, so I did, figuring he just wanted to make sure I was ok.

Instead, he started questioning me about what I was doing, where I was going, etc, so I explained the basis of my trip. After talking for a bit he told me that I wasn't allowed to ride on the interstate, and he would have to give me a ticket. Now the rules differ by state, some allow you to ride interstates only if there isn't a similar parallel route, others allow it as long as there isn't heavy traffic, etc. I wasn't sure of the NM rules, but I knew that all the on-ramps had signs saying that pedestrians and motor driven cycles aren't allowed, but that bicycles should use shoulder only.

Knowing this I told him I was pretty sure I was allowed to be there, and could show him signs proving that. He was pretty skeptical, so I ended up making a bet with him, unofficially of course. If I could prove that I was allowed to be there, he would pay me the fine for the ticket he had tried to give me. If I couldn't immediately prove that I was allowed to be there, I would have to take the ticket and pay the fine. Fair enough by me.

I ended up locking my bike to itself with the rear wheel locked up, then jumping in the back of the police car. We took a U-turn on the interstate and went back to the last exit/on-ramp to see if there was any signage. Sure enough, there was one of the little "bicycles use should only" signs. The cop was pretty surprised, and said he was going to look into the relevant laws later, but drove me back to my bike and paid for the bet. Not a bad way to make a few bucks, although it was pretty stressful to deal with any kind of cop in that situation.