Corona, New Mexico, Center of the Universe

There are lots of motorcycle groups in New Mexico that post rides online around the state and region, and Ninja Dave belongs to all of them. When he’s not working or sleeping (or engaged in other activities we probably don’t really want to know about), he’s riding his motorcycle on epic rides to anywhere and nowhere either alone or with one of these groups.

Dave has specialized expertise in fixing esoteric heaters, coolers and such, so his job sends him all over the state to the most out-of-the-way, forgotten towns. When he’s in his truck traveling little-traveled routes across the state, he’s imagining riding his green Ninja under that big sky and sharing it with his friends. One of his recent work trips took him to Corona, New Mexico, almost dead center of the state out on the plains, where he had a nice lunch at El Corral Café, so he posted a proposed motorcycle trip to Corona on the Duke City Fix motorcycle riders’ forum.

Nobody signed up. We didn’t know where that was or why we should go there. So Dave said fine, I’ll cancel the trip and go camping and fishing instead. Then we all signed up to ride. One guy learned about the ride from a posting on the RidingWithPride gay motorcycle group site, one heard about it word-of-mouth, one didn’t RSVP but showed up anyway, which is what he always does. I also invited two friends that ride motorcycles and don’t belong to any of these groups. Seven people met at Tramway and Central: Ninja Dave, Honda Nighthawk Dave (aka Ditching Dave), Frank on his cool white Honda Interceptor, Ken on his newly-once-again-running Savage, Dan on his blue SV650, Tom on a Harley Sportster 883 and me on my groovy Honda Hornet with the new beaded seat.

Dave was the one who posted the ride, and then we all decided to lead it and we all had different ideas. Tom wanted to change the route to include a stop at the ancient Gran Quivira ruins. Dan wanted a loop trip that didn’t trace back the same route. Ken needed a route with regular gas stops for his short cruising range and couldn’t go too fast on the old Savage. Nighthawk Dave wanted to go really fast and try to ditch us. I wanted to stop in the cemetery in Corona, because – in my online research on this town – I found a woman from Kansas on Ancestry.com who had a great grandfather buried there and wasn’t sure where this even was, so I figured I’d find the gravestone and take a picture. I also pitched in to support various other route changes, just to mix things up some more. Frank was telling a story about Fiji and tuning us out. And with that, we set out!

Ahh, we leaned into cool, pine-scented twisties and cruised by eroding adobe ranchitos in the Spanish Landgrant towns of Manzano, Tajique, and Chilili down old Hiway 14. Regrouped in Mountainair, we immediately lost Ditching Dave. Tom led us to a gas station, then disappeared to find Dave. The rest of us rode back and forth through town looking for both of them. How do people get lost in Mountainair?? (the same way people get lost in Corona, we found out later). Finally saw Dave and Tom in front of the café none of us knew about (who goes to Mountainair and stops anywhere but the Schaffer Hotel??) then we all weighed in at once on the map and route and the rest misguidedly recruited me to lead us on. I had no idea where we were going, but happily set off, missing the turn off to Willard and headed toward Ancho. Ditching Dave was already gone on the right route to Willard, so the rest stopped and waited while Tom on the Harley chased down Ditching Dave and Ninja Dave chased me down to make me turn around. Keystone Cops.

All together, we headed out onto the hot, flat plains of eastern New Mexico. The road paralleled the tracks for awhile and Dan sped by at 100 mph+ to beat the train. I caught him and Ninja Dave passed us like we were standing still.

The town of Corona hasn’t seen the population jump over 200 in a number of decades. Far away from another human settlement of any size, its only recent almost-claim-to-fame came when a rancher about 30 miles south found the wreckage of a weather balloon and brought it into Corona for others in town to examine. It was decided that the most likely explanation was that it was a UFO full of aliens, so they took it to Roswell and put Roswell on the map forever.

Expecting a ghost town, we pulled into Corona and found flags flying on the main street, lots of trucks parked around and spectators lining the sidewalks. We had missed being part of the annual city parade by half an hour! In front of El Corral Café, a veterans’ group was selling raffle tickets to raise money to spruce up the graves of veterans in the cemetery and serendipitously were familiar with the old gravestone I wanted to find. A woman pointed out the town festival “syllabus” on the café wall and urged us to stay for the dance that night. The café featured chicken fried steak with cream gravy and green chile chicken enchiladas (also with cream gravy), but no Corona (or any other beer) in the town of Corona. Probably best, as we had miles to ride and no naps were forthcoming.

Then we lost Frank.
On the restaurant porch, we broke into two groups over maps and generated four opinions about which way to go next. I think Ninja Dave had given up any idea that he was the Boss of this ride by this time. Frank and I sat on the bench and commiserated about all the times in the past we had gotten lost. Kenny decided to find a gas station to fill up and I told the group I was headed to the graveyard, just past the gas station. I pointed out the flags over the cemetery on the hillside so nobody would get confused, and headed off. The others soon followed, but when we got the graveyard, no Frank. I figured he was waiting below, not wanting to ding up his white motorcycle on the rocky path up the hill. We roamed the graveyard till Ken found Ralph Green’s stone, nicely manicured and with a new flag from the Veterans’ group and I got some good pictures. Back down the hill, still no Frank. We went back into town, rode up each road a little bit, but no idea which way he went. We hoped he had a nice ride home and set off again. I followed the others along the straight, rolling hills in a hot, open landscape with views of clouds and plains a hundred miles in all directions.

At one point I found myself lolling off to sleep, which is ill-advised on a motorcycle going 85 mph, so I knew I needed to stop. We found the town of Willard, where I spotted Ditching Dave’s Honda Nighthawk behind a tree next to a bar, and stopped. The others turned around and joined us. Ken had had enough of this fickle, ADHD-fueled group with no planning skills and worried that he’d end up out of gas out in the middle of nowhere while we debated about which way to go, so he headed off for Estancia alone. At the bar in Willard, I took off my tee shirt and soaked it in the sink and then we sat on the porch and we drank cold Cokes and chatted nostalgically, mostly about the old days (or years, in some cases) we spent stoned on pot. Good and bad memories all around.

Ditching Dave took off and we were down to four. Twisting back down through the Landgrant towns behind the Manzano mountains and into Albuquerque, where we diverged, for the final time, to home and the awaiting couches for naps.

(Frank made it home, we found out later, and I’m sure will have a much-deserved scolding for the rest of us scofflaw bikers that might even lead to a new safety protocol for motorcycle riding groups. That we’ll probably forget to follow. I’m sorry, Frank, and I still hope you’ll join us!)