Day 15 Raton, New Mexico

So today was really a transport stage to Raton, the furthest east we will travel on this trip. We finally crossed the continental devide over the Monarch pass. Once again I am reminded not to put our intended plans on the blog as I said 3 days ago we would cross it.
Dave and I decided to test each others patience at our morning fuelling stop. The bikes were filled and I went off to the road leading to our next destination. I look in my rear view mirror to see Mr McMillan ride off through another exit in the wrong direction. What I couldn't see is that he had circled around behind a tour bus to come back into the petrol station.
Charming. Crap I think ( actually much more robust words were thought). Well best I go fetch him to point him in the right direction so I go haring off down the highway. Now I figure that Dave must have thought that I had already left and therefore would be going pretty rapidly to catch the virtual me. Hence I would need to go really, really fast to catch him... You can appreciate how rediculous this was I am sure. Well after a number of miles of course I hadn't caught him and had decided it wasn't worth dying for so thought I would just head back to the petrol station and wait till he appeared. Of course when I got back he was sitting there all pleased with himself, wondering what all the fuss was about. Linda, you are a special lady and probably too good for him.
Today I have to admit I'm quite pleased we didn't go all the way to Arkansas. We are now on the other side of the Rockies, dead flat plains as far as the eye can see and hot as hell. To cross them just so we could cross them again would not have been fun.
We are again at the mercy of FedEx. They should be delivering some tyres to Hesters bike shop here in Raton. They have very kindly let us use their facilities to put fresh knobbly tyres on the bikes. Please let the planets align to make this happen ( the object whose name we don't mention us still fresh in our memories).
We expect to be here tomorrow night still. The day will be spent doing final prep for the trail which for me has consisted of throwing out half my gear.
If I can do it without Dave noticing I may throw out some of the 20 000 sachets of instant coffee he has me dragging around the states as well.
Finally, and Linda I'm sorry it took him only two weeks to move on, I caught Dave lurking around this lass with obvious lusty thoughts..