Girl Meets World On A Yamaha FZ-07 Part 4: Carlsbad Caverns

Tiff and I met at the track, where she races her Ninja 250 with more enjoyment and positivity than anyone else on the grid. When Tiffani got word that she’d be getting laid off from her job in Los Angeles, she didn’t fret. In typical ultra-optimistic Tiff style, she saw it as an opportunity to hit the road on her newly acquired Yamaha FZ-07. What follows are Tiffani’s reports from the road, originally posted for her friends on Facebook but shared here with her permission for all to enjoy. — Ari Henning

Day 8! This marked the start of the second week of being on the road, so I felt like it was marginally special. I had put down around 2,000 miles so far and learned a lot about what it took to live off a motorcycle.

This day was supposed to be a rest day. Trying to figure out what this “rest” concept actually is, I determined that hiking is a great relaxer. So after much deliberation, I set off for Carlsbad Caverns, which was only 170 miles from camp. The road I took ended up going up through the mountains of Cloudcroft, which would have been lovely and scenic if not for the fact that it ascended to over 8,500 feet and ended up being 40 degrees the entire 100 miles from city to city, which is pretty damn cold! My Dainese jacket and pants kept me reasonably warm, but I had to pull over a couple times and do a bit of throttle-less coasting while warming my hands with the heat of the engine to get through.

When I got to the cavern, as luck would have it, the elevator was broken. People were still allowed in, but the caveat was that you had to walk back out. This meant over a mile of hiking downhill then what felt like way more than over a mile of unrelenting uphill. But I’m not one to say “no” to many things, and I had no time to change before they stopped letting people in for the day, so I went for it—in full touring gear.

The caverns are really cool! I had never been in a cave of any kind before so everything was really exciting and novel. But, the hike out was absolutely brutal, even if I hadn’t been wearing motorcycle boots. One of the rangers had laughed at me on the way down noting he didn’t expect to see me in my jacket anymore on the way up. He won that bet. While ultimately pretty satisfying, it was exhausting enough that I opted to get a hotel that night, because camping in the cold after this, uh, mountain after “rest day” just sounded like needless torture.

But what a great day! After a good night’s sleep in a cheap motel in Carlsbad, I took my time waking up and heading out to Texas. I wasn’t sure where to go since I didn’t really have any destinations planned in Texas, so I set my GPS for Dallas (specifically, Ben Spies’ restaurant in Dallas), and took off. Not much to say for today. Texas is big, straight, flat, boring, and windy, but at least the temperatures are nice and the food portions are comically big (and Dairy Queen is freaking EVERYWHERE).

Having lost yet another hour to time zones, after making it to Albany, I realized it was getting late and I was still too worn out from yesterday’s adventure to continue. I found a campground on a lake between Albany and Dallas, and set up. Turns out, this state is quite pretty once you get off the main highway. This may be one of my favorite grounds so far.

Tomorrow, Dallas, and… I have no idea what else!