The room was dark and not in any way noteworthy as to what city I was waking up in this time, but a quick glance at the local "What to do..." pamphlet I laid on the nightstand to remind myself what timezone I was in brought back the memory of the previous day.
Having never been to New Mexico, I really had no idea what to expect. I knew we hadn't timed our trip to see the balloon festival, but that was something that had always been on my list of things to see. A quick call to my friend, and it turned out we were staying across the street from where she wanted to meet for breakfast, a nice place called Weck's. Good food, big portions, no pictures.
After breakfast, we headed out. This was to be a "just drive through" day. We debated what to see and do in NM. Thought about going to the Petroglyphs National Park close by, but decided there was just too much to see and do in NM, so we'd come back another time just for this area. We made virtually no ground yesterday, and we could easily get sucked into sightseeing all over here, as it was so beautiful. So we headed out of town after gassing up.
Once outside of Albuquerque, the terrain turned into flat. I mean real flat. This was all we had envisioned for Arizona and New Mexico both, not to mention Texas. This was flat like "if Columbus grew up here, he'd have believed the earth was flat" kind of flat. Not that there's anything wrong with flat, it just didn't change much, and it seemed like we never made any forward progress. That's the part of traveling I don't like a bit: having a destination. It spoils some of the fun. But we didn't let it.
Neither of us having taken such a long trip before, we though we'd go ahead and try one of them books on tape. Before we had left, we went to a bookstore, looked around for one we'd both be interested in listening to for 20 hours or so, and didn't really get too excited about any of them. But as we were walking out, having given up on the idea, I noticed "On the Road" by Jack Kerouac. I had only heard of it, but never read it. All I knew about it was it was about roadtrips, Route 66, and probably a lot of drugs. We snatched it up.
On this long, flat section of New Mexico, we decided to finally start listening to it. I know right where we were when we turned it on, because as I was reading a sign we were passing to figure out where we were, I hear the familiar voice of Matt Dillon reading to us, "with the coming of Dean Moriarty began the part of my life you could call my life on the road." The sign said we were approaching Moriarty, NM. I wonder if that's how he got that pseudonym for the character in the book.
Strange things happen in New Mexico...
So nothing really else to note other than we started getting hungry toward the far East end of New Mexico. We see a town ahead called Tucumcari, and figure they probably have somewhere to eat if they're big enough to merit a green highway sign. We pass the first exit as we are trying to figure out if this is the main part of town or not.
Off in the distance (you can see quite a ways out here), Maria says she sees 2 planes "flying in formation". I look through the bug-encrusted windshield and tell her that it sure looks to me like an A-10, and I KNOW that's a P-38 flying with it!! I was not 100% about the A-10, but I KNOW P-38's!! Well, the only reason they'd be doing that is practicing for an airshow all the way out here on a random Wednesday afternoon in Tucumcari, NM. I want to go check it out, but it looks like they are further away from civilization, and we need to eat.
So we get off the highway at the end of Tucumcari, go slightly North, and backtrack along the main road, which is Route 66. Yet another well-preserved town of Route 66 buildings and businesses! Some look new...others...not so much. It mostly looks like it could have been the 50's, and we just jumped back through time. Between the buildings, the reading of "On the Road", and seeing a mirage of a random P38 (my favorite plane, the P-38 and the same kind we were just talking about at the random Planes of Fame museum 2 days earlier), I am beginning to wonder if I am still asleep in Albuquerque.
We get pretty much back to the West end of town, and head back toward the freeway. We pull into a parking lot, and check out the scene of a crime of some sort at a Motel, as we eat our crappy fast food in the truck. We didn't even get out to use the restroom, we just wanted to keep moving. I knew there was a body in the motel somewhere, as they had the whole property taped off, with the kind of vehicles inside the perimeter that only come out for things like that. It turned out the night clerk had been murdered, as I later found this news story: Murdered clerk
We hop back on the freeway, hoping the P-38 is still out flying, so I can take a look. There are only about 5 flying that I am aware of. We don't see it still up in the air, but after going another mile or so, I just have to find the airstrip they flew out of to investigate. So we take what looks to be the right exit, see an arrow on a sign, and follow it down the rural road to Tucumcari Airport. I don't believe it...they are having a full-fledged airshow today!
We drive through the parking lot, find a space to stop right next to the gate entrance to the tarmac. We sit and watch outside the gate for a few minutes, staring at the beautiful B-17 in front of us, wondering how we could have stumbled onto this in the middle of nowhere, wondering if we should ask if this is Rod Serling's hometown. Then we thought since we are here, we NEED to see the P-38 up close, and the Canadian Snowbirds are about to do their show! I'd been to a bunch of airshows, but this was Maria's first time, and she loved it. We walked right in, there wasn't anyone taking tickets at the gate or anything!?
You have GOT to be kidding me...the P-38 flying at the airshow was now parked at the end of the tarmac by itself. It was the very P-38 the lady at the museum had talked about 2 days earlier. The plane I had been following for about a decade, but never had seen. This was the plane recovered from under like 268' of ice on a glacier in Greenland that people had been trying to recover since thinking they found them in 1977. This was the Glacier Girl!!
Random...I literally had tears running down my face as I tried to take it all in. State I'd never been to, town I'd never head of, using a plan we never made, watching a demonstration team I'd seen before perform, as I stood next to my favorite plane I'd never seen before, looking at Maria's smile of complete joy and fascination. This just couldn't get any better.
After a quick tour of the B-17, answering all of her myriad questions about the planes, we headed out to beat "the crowd". It was late afternoon, and we still had a long way to go. We had no idea if we could make Dallas by sometime reasonable tonight, but it was looking less likely. And we could see storm clouds off in the distance.
As we crossed into Texas, I noticed I got a little nervous. My family was from here, but I had only been here as a baby. The storm was closer, and I knew we had a long way to drive. We stopped at a Dairy Queen to get drinks. Maria was excited about the 2 young (but huge) teenagers who got out of the truck next to us, and said "'scuse me, Ma'am" to her.
Since we were up on the 40, and would hit Amarillo, I had wanted to see the Cadillac Ranch. I'm not sure why, and didn't know anything about it, other than that it was in Amarillo, somewhere. So when we saw Amarillo, I got off the first exit to ask where it was. I didn't want to pass it and have to back-track. Turned out I passed it already by 1 exit. Had I bothered looking to the right, I would have seen it. So we went back and checked it out. It had just started raining, and this was our first rain of the trip. I was actually surprised at how interesting it was. I guess it's art or something, but I just think it's funny. Certainly something you don't see every day! Unfortunately, a bunch of litter around it, but I found a can with some leftover to do my part to add to the art, before dumping a bunch in the dumpster the guy provides. Worth a look if you're headed that way!!
Then finally, we turned away from the famous Route 66, and headed Southeast through Texas. There isn't a lot to report through here, as it was nighttime when we left Amarillo, and we mostly drove straight through the darkness. It was flat and straight. A few really old town that would have been fun to see. Most of the buildings seemed fairly old, and most even boarded up in one town I recall going through. We did stop at the nicest rest stop we had ever seen, as well as a Sonic in Childress.
We ended up calling it a day at a Best Western in Wichita Falls, Texas, after driving a total of only 534 miles. We really stop too much!
At least we have food pics tomorrow, I think...
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