Dia Nueve: OH, SHIP! SHEEP!!!

Once again we were devastated to leave our accommodations, these the wonderful Casa Zuniga mentioned in yesterday's post.  But we were off to new adventures, passing over a great mountain road, stopping to inspect remarkable modernist majolica pottery at a place recommended by our Guanajuato host Rick Zuniga, and then down into the Bajio to Highway 57, which, four-lane divided sometimes free, sometimes cuota, runs up the spine of Mexico.  Nominal speed limits are posted and universally ignored.

The two biks were uh, whizzing up the highway when it happened:  the space-time continuum ripped, and They Came Out of Nowhere, just like everyone says who's had a similar experience with a truck, or dog, or machetero.  For us, the road ahead was clear, and then, instantly it was filled with sheep.  Shocked sheep, shocked to see our headlights bearing down on them at terrifying speed, shocked to find themselves on a highway in Mexico.  I never, ever, have squoze the brake lever so hard on a motorcycle, managing to stop just short of Mary's little lamb.  Joe, behind me, and more heavily laden, had a harder time slowing, but noted a tiny space between two of the shocked sheep, and went past me at what seemed like 130mph, time having slowed to practically zero as I bore down on the panicked lamb.  Had I hit the lamb, it would not have been amusing in the "I hit a chicken at practically zero mph" sense; in fact, it would not have been amusing at all, it would have involved very large doses of pain and expense. 

So naturally, after stopping to gas up and gather our wits, we sped up.  Hey, think about it. No way the space-time continuum is going to split in front of us twice in one day.  We were golden.  I do wonder, though where the sheep came from.  Were they somewhere in Basque country, when suddenly the worm hole opened and they were dropped in front of us?

The rest of the day was anticlimactic:  truck stop enchiladas (not THAT kind of truck stop, a dusty little cafe by the side of the road with trucks stopped in front of it), misdirection directly into the heart of Saltillo via Ms. GPS (and a bad guess on my part) to a semi-seedy hotel that is really a motel, but aspires to greatness with the name:  Imperial.  Mexican fast food chicken for dinner because it was across the street and we were hot and tired, and well, that's about it for today.  Tomorrow won't be worth writing about unless we get our heads chopped off, as we'll just run up to the border, and then across south Texas back to Austin.

Most fun I've had since Suzanne and I spend about nine months bumming around South America, during the Eocene Epoch.  I'm already scheming up a different route....