Today Jacque had an 8:00 AM errand that only lasted an hour, so we loaded up the trike on the roof-rack and planned to take at least a short ride when she got done.
We rode first along westbound Paseo (on the bike path) and then south at the Bosque Trail intersection. A few miles south we noticed some cyclists off the side of the trail taking photos and realized they were watching a near-tame COYOTE, just a few feet off the trail, lying there looking at passersby as though he was a dog on a leash. We assumed he must have been sick or injured to just sit there and let humans get within mere feet of him and take pictures. We didn't stop or slow down, just continued as far south as Mountain Road, AKA "Bicycle Boulevard", then east on that nice avenue to Old Town where we looked around for a place to eat breakfast. We spied the likeliest looking restaurant on the plaza, the La Hacienda Restaurant, and quickly sat down in their outdoor serving area happily with Tinkerbell in our laps. There was a small line waiting at the door, and we were informed the restaurant wasn't yet open. The restaurant signs said clearly "Hours: 11:00 AM to 3:00 PM" and it was already 11:20 so we were confused. I walked into the adjoining gift shoppe to ask what was going on, when the doors to the restaurant opened by a nice young man as I walked up. He showed me where to find the necessary all-important restrooms and said "Fine" when I told him we were waiting in the outside seats for service. When I returned to our seat after visiting the 'necessary room', Jacque went inside for the same purpose. However, when she returned she had unpleasant news: The restaurant staff had told her "they weren't serving yet" though the cafe was open and several of the wait-people were sitting around in the booths inside chatting with each other and doing nothing. I have no idea if the cook was not yet on hand, or WHAT was going on, but the owner must have been on vacation or doesn't check on his employees because they allowed all present customers, including US, to leave without so much as an offer to bring us a menu, a drink of water, or any verbal hint of just when they might decide to start taking orders, much less serving food. We left, hoping to find a restaurant really serving food.... and just around the corner, inside a less visible placita inside the Old Town Plaza, was The Quesadilla Grille. Not only were they open, and had outside tables so we could bring Tink to eat with us, they had actual warm bodied waitresses that SERVED us promptly and without question. AND - The food was GREAT. The appetizer's toasted chips and salsa were wonderful and I could easily have filled up on those alone. Their guacamole salad was fabulous and the quesadillas were great, chosen from a surprising variety on the menu. Go to Old Town and try them out, but stay away from the La Hacienda.
After a great breakfast, we waddled out and saddled up the trike again and discussed where to go from there. We'd parked the trike locked to a lamp-post right on the main plaza, and of course we happily dealt with the usual admirers of Tinkerbell and our wonderful Tandem Recumbent Terratrike.
I wanted to do another loop of downtown and return back to theBalloon Park via the UNM area bike paths and the North Diversion Trail, as we have done before. Jacque was more interested in going on down the Bosque Trail so we did.
The weather was now warming up but still just chilly enough to be very pleasant. We rode as far south as we could, finding we could actually ride UNDER the too-narrow obstacles blocking the path from vehicles at Rio Bravo:
At this particular gate we could not fit in the narrow key-slot path going around the gate. We found, however, by removing our bike flag and antennas, and by me leaning over sideways, with Jacque talking me through the gate, that I could go UNDER the crossbar -which alowed us to continue southward. Just a few miles further, however, and the ripples, cracks, and other disruptions to the pavement required us to turn around and give up the idea of riding the entire southern leg of the bosque trail. This area is obviously not on the city's priority list for maintenance of any kind. We always find it rough, cracked, and potholed, without patching or other maintenance, but this time the buckles in the pavement were just too much, throwing us off balance and worrying us that our tires would blow out or the wheels break or bend if we kept going. We traveled just a mile or so south of the tortilla factory adjacent to the path and gave up and turned around. BAH
We had a good trip all around. Just as we traversed the Central Avenue Underpass we encountere two interesting items: A Greenspeed recumbent trike rider and a tandem with an attractive young couple from Los Alamos driving it, and they were highly interested in our Tandem Terratrike. We rode parallel with them for a few blocks, dodging the crowd of oncoming walkers and riders going the other way, and challenged them to pull over at Mountain
Road so we could let them try out our trike. We stopped, they alighted upong our trike, and rolled away. They returned in a few minutes, wide smiles aplenty, and we told them about our Albuquerque Bent Rider's Club and the monthly rides and invited them to come along sometime. Hopefully we will see them again. They have lived in Los Alamos for 24 or more years, and lived there at the same time as I did back in the 80's and 90's but of course we had never previously met.
As we returned north, hours after our journey south, we spotted Mr. Tame Coyote on the OTHER side of the bike path, again only a few feet away, this time being FED by a cyclist stopped and tossing tidbits to him. We're a bit alarmed by such a critter being unafraid of humans, what with our already-coyote scarred Tinkerbell on board, but maybe this critter is a long term attraction along the Bosque that we just haven't noticed before in our many trips.
When we finally got back to the vehicle we were BUSHED. No wonder: Look at the miles. Likely the longest human powered trip we've ever made up to date.
Stats from the GPS: Total Miles: 38.82
Overall average speed Moving Avg Max Speed
7.4 MPH 9.9 MPH 21.4 MPH
Total Trip time Moving Time Stopped Time
5 hours 15 mins 3 hours 54 mins 1 hour 21 minutes
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