Day Eight - Red River NM to Emporia KS - 581 miles
We knew we wouldn’t have much good riding on this day, but we were going to enjoy it as long as we could. Going down the mountain on NM38 was very good, but only a short distance to Eagle’s Nest we we caught back up with US64. We rode down to Cimarron and caught NM58. This was a little shortcut off of US64 that went to the north for no apparent reason. NM58 was straight as an arrow, but it wasn’t bad. In Clayton we caught back up with US64 and went into the panhandle of OK. I wanted to ride through Boise City OK as it was the center of the dust bowl in the 1930s and I had read about it. There certainly isn’t much there, and is overwhelmingly desolate. Shortly after that we stopped at a rest area in Keyes. It had gotten rather hot so the rest was well needed. We continued on to Dodge City stopping to get a picture of one of the massive stock yards there. I cannot begin to describe the odor, but I guess one gets used to it if you live there. We rode into Dodge City and it was quite nice. We stopped for some lunch and a cold brew that really hit the spot. We continued on pushing towards Emporia. We chose this as we wanted a short ride home the following day. Looking back I am really glad we rode through KS this way. I actually came to enjoy it to some extent and I found it far better than the interstate. We hit Emporia grabbed a quick bite and took a dip in the motel pool.
