Michael and I had planned, all the previous day, how we were going to announce our departure from the motel, �We�ve got to get the hell out of Dodge!� If you�ve never heard this phrase, you obviously have missed many Western movies and TV shows. We packed our SUV and both walked into the lobby and announced to the clerk, �We�ve got to get the hell out of Dodge!� She looked up, smiled and said, �Have a nice trip.� Disappointed? We were crushed. She had no idea, we were trying to make a joke. We had better luck at the Boot Hill Museum. The woman in the souvenir store chuckled and acknowledged our carefully rehearsed line, which I�m sure she hears every day. We enjoyed the museum which is actually a reconstructed street containing saloons, apothecaries, etc. It also has the old cemetery and a small display room celebrating American Indian culture. It was carried out better than I expected, having been ripped off by such tourist attractions in the past.
We found U.S. Route 56, which more or less parallels the old Santa Fe Trail but had to go slowly because of ground mist. We were finally passed by a trailer truck. Truck drivers never seem to slow down for anything. Maybe they figure if they hit something, they�ll come out O.K. I tucked in a safe distance behind and increased my speed to match the truck�s. I learned this trick, years ago, while driving in the Central Valley of California during Thule fog episodes. Given some of the horrible chain collisions there, what I was doing might not have been the smartest idea. I was just frustrated enough to risk it, though, on a mostly empty highway in Southwest Kansas.
By the time we got to Oklahoma, the sun had come out. The land was still flat but somehow the sun shining on it made it look better. As we entered New Mexico, it started to rain, then sunshine, then rain, then snow. I was feeling schizophrenic, which reminds me of the old joke, �Are you schizophrenic?� �Well, sometimes I am and sometimes I�m not.� The flatness of the prairie is awesome. I cannot imagine how frustrating it would be to drive a wagon 20 miles a day across these plains. It must have seemed as if the prairie was never going to end. The scenery improved as the plains morphed into high desert soon after we crossed into New Mexico. By the time we reached Springer, New Mexico we were in the foothills of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. We filled up the gas tank, while the woman running the gas station regaled us with horror stories of the road to Taos. She had heard it was closed in places and that it was snowy and slippery the entire way. She estimated that it would take us three hours or more to complete the 80 mile leg.
An Aside
What has happened to the gas station owner who could be counted on to provide information about current road conditions? When I was a traveling salesman in both Wisconsin and California in the 1960�s, I knew I could always get trustworthy information from highway gas station attendants and owners. No more. Either the attendant is young, bored and uninterested or older, bored and uninterested. Owners are just as bad. People used to take pride in being able to provide current and accurate information, now they either pass on rumors or just tell you they have no idea what�s going on. In one particularly memorable situation we stopped at a station near Espanola because Route 64 to Tierra Amarilla was closed. We asked the owner when he thought the road would open and he shrugged his shoulders and said he didn�t know. We drove over 50 miles out of our way only to discover the pass opened about 15 minutes after we left Espanola. Years ago, the owner would have at least had an idea of when the pass would open but no more. The radio is no help either. We were listening to local stations and they didn�t even announce the pass was closed. When we finally circled around to the other side of the pass, we stopped at a station to get some snacks and the owner there didn�t even known the pass had been closed. I have no idea why this has happened except perhaps because there are fewer stations and they make their money selling groceries and fast food, not gas, that they have no motivation to stay up on local road conditions. Whatever the reasons, I miss the convenience.
(Continued)