
The iPhone warns of cloudy skies ahead as we motor north through New Mexico toward a frostbitten Santa Fe.
So much for spring break. Our tour wrapped up on Friday afternoon and I spent the evening in a South Tucson motel enjoying all the benefits of modern living — hot shower, cold beer, a bed that doesn’t stuff neatly into a waterproof sack and of course, another combo plate at El Minuto. Two of my riding buddies and I went there post-tour to eat, drink and talk of things both great and small before drifting back to the motel for a dolorous chorus of hasta la vista muchachos, compañeros de mi vida.
Come morning at least five cars had been burgled in the parking lot, windows bashed out and various items liberated in the name of the people, and the manager was muttering about chicken-shit gangbangers and forming a motel owners’ co-op to hire armed security. Seemed like a good time to get out of Dodge, as my weaponry consisted of a Swiss army knife and a rapier-like wit.
I hit the road in shorts and T-shirt, watching gloomily as the Subie’s thermometer slid from the high 60s to the low 40s by Socorro, New Mexico, where I switched to jeans and long sleeves.

Don't let the sun fool you — it's 25 degrees outside of the Guadalupe Cafe.
By dinner (green-chile cheeseburger, fries and IPA at Second Street Brewery in Santa Fe) I had pulled on a fleece jacket and gimme cap. First day of spring, my large Irish ass.
But wait, it gets worse. En route to a platter of sausage-and-cheese enchiladas this morning at the Guadalupe Cafe I was wishing I’d thought to tug on a tuque and winter gloves; the Subie told me it was all of 25 degrees in The City Different. Waaah.
Well, whatever. Nut up or shut up, as Woody Harrelson said in “Zombieland.” As soon as the sun gets a little higher in the sky I plan to soak my battered carcass in the public tub at Ten Thousand Waves, no matter what the ambient temperature, and then it’s off for the final leg of my trip, over icy Raton Pass and back to Bibleburg. Rain and snow are in the forecast until Friday, and I fear for my larval tan lines.
But the pants fit a little more loosely, and I kind of like that feeling, so I’ll break out a fendered cyclo-cross bike and reacquaint myself with neoprene kit in the never-ending struggle to keep my inner fat bastard under lock and key.