What can you say about yet another small Texas town like Dalhart? It doesn't smell great and the downtown, though nicely bricked, shows the economic strains of most of these towns. But after 450+ miles on a motorcycle, Dalhart looks damn good!

It wasn't a great ride from a scenic standpoint. The best that you can say about the roads is that they are in good shape and relatively free of trucks. And I was able to use my poor-man's cruise control which only works when the road is level.

We did pass several wind farms near Abiliene. Since our house in Austin is on a "green" energy program, one of those windmills could indirectly be supplying our electricity.

We lucked out with the weather. It was expected to be in the mid-90s. But a front went through early and it didn't get about the low 80's until we were almost to Dalhart. Of course, no good luck goes unpunished.

Early in the day, we skipped getting gas in Sweetwater. Clif was on reserve but the station we pulled in to (after passing others) had gas at $1.97. We decided to try further on down the road. After about 10 miles with no gas in sight, we ended up turning back and spend some anxious minutes trying to find a station near I-20. We got to a station, but it was a close call.

Clearly not learning a thing from this episode, we blew through Amarillo even though Clif was close to going on reserve. Although the next "large" town was 40 miles, we all assumed there would be gas along a major, well-traveled highway. By now, you can guess the rest. About 4 miles from the town, Clif started burning fumes. He, Marty and I pulled off while Charlie continued into the town. He returned about twenty minutes later with a container of gas. All in all, we lost about an hour of our day to our personal gas crisis.

Good things so far:

• Bike runs great. Getting about 45 mpg even though we were going 70-75 most of the day.
• The refurbished Dell Jukebox has been great. Never skips and serves up one song after another. I have about 1700 tracks so I should be set for the trip.

The less than great:

• There is no such thing as a really comfortable motorcycle seat or a truly quiet helmet.
• If my back isn't sore, it's my butt. It's certainly bearable, but 450 miles is probably my limit.

Severe weather predicted for tonight may pass to the south. Tomorrow we get to NM and CO. The scenery should increase dramatically.