Day 6 — Socorro to Capitan

A much tougher day. This would make a good route for fans of the Ride to Mescalero (a 120-mile from NE El Paso to Ruidoso), because it involves a long, flat main part and a steep climb at the end. About 96 miles total.

As always, check out the Bikecapade photos at http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=q0xr8qy.161e7da2&x=0&h=1&y=-t70kx&localeid=en_US

From Socorro, I rode about 10 miles south on NM 1 to San Antonio. San Antonio, N.M., is a hamlet best known as the hometown of Conrad Hilton and the home of the Owl Café, world famous for its green chile hamburgers. But today it was only about 8:15 a.m. when I stopped at the Owl, so I settled on a cup of coffee. I sat at the bar (which once belonged to Hilton) since I was the only customer. Owner Adolf Baca, now 76, recounted the story he has surely told thousands of time before.
“I was 13 and I had to go outside to pee,” that July 16 morning. Suddenly the pre-dawn sky turn bright as noon and the earth shook. He ran back to bed having lost all desire to pee. Later he would find out he had been one of the witnesses of the first atomic bomb explosion, detonated about 35 miles southeast on White Sands Missile Range.
The story was well worth price of the coffee — but Mr. Baca wouldn’t even let me pay for that.
About an hour later I was able to pay that forward when a family from Long Island, N.Y. stopped at the Trinity Site historical marker where I was eating an apple. I told the couple and their teen-age son about the site, Mr. Baca’s story fresh in my mind, and highlighted some other tourist stops along their way. They had rented a car in Albuquerque and were taking a vacation through New Mexico.
The couple was apparently from Japan originally but had lived in the U.S. for about 20 years. They asked if anyone suffered illness from the Trinity Site explosion, and they recalled the horrible aftereffects suffered by the survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

That was one of the few memorable moments on that eternally long stretch of 65 miles between San Antonio to Carrizozo. In a car, it would be just a long hour when you would turn up the car stereo and your passengers might nap. On a bike it’s forever. Nothing but flat, high-desert landscape with the mountains far in the distance east and west.

The lone stop along the way is a place called Bingham, which I think has a population of three and the main attraction is the Bingham Rock Shop, with thousands of rocks arrayed on metal stands in front of the shop. Shopping for rocks was a bit out of the question for a bicyclist, but I did have an intense interest in the Coke machine. The vending machine did not seem to work, so I rang the doorbell to the shop. A woman emerged from the double-wide trailer in back and said she just needed to plug the machine back in — she always unplugs it at night, she explained, “but they’re still cold,” she added. Apparently I was the first Coke customer of the day and it was already past noon. The rock shop did have the friendliest cats I have ever encountered, and their purring seemed particularly loud in the desert quiet.

At the east end of the basin is a steep hill after which begins the downhill approach into Carrizozo. A few miles before town is Valley of Fires State Park, an old lava flow that looks spectacular not so much because of the deep black volcanic rock, but the rich desert plants that thrive amid the rock. It’s the ultimate xeriscaping.

Carrizozo is also the first chance for a meal in 65 miles. I scouted out the town, and happened upon an old ice cream parlor with the traditional soda fountain. So I started my late lunch/early dinner with a vanilla malt, visiting with a pleasant couple from Belen and the old gentleman who ran the ice cream parlor (which like Adolf Baca and the Owl Café, seemed like a labor of love more than a business).

I had been dreading the 20-mile climb from Carrizozo to Capitan, knowing that my legs would be tired and my energies low at that point in the ride. This last leg of the ride involves a gentle 10-mile or so gradual climb, then about three miles of tough work getting to the top of Indian Divide (at 6,940 feet, it’s about 1,500 feet above Carrizozo), then the welcome coast into Capitan.

The iPod helped take the mind off the unchanging scenery during the main part of Day 6. I put on the soundtrack to Chariots of Fire to inspire me for that final climb.