Before I left the Lubbock KOA, I dumped my trash and dumped my waste tanks and filled the propane tank. I think I last filled that in Arkansas, last March. But I use propane only for the cooktop and for fueling the frig when I'm unplugged from an electric source, neither of which draws much fuel. Of course, it also powers my cabin heater, but that's not a feature I've used lately, what with it being so hot since I got to Dallas - the nighttime temps didn't even go below 80 at times. Anyway, my tank is full now.
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| Texico, NM, to Sandia Park, NM |
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| Lubbock, TX, to Texico, NM |
Turned out to be a good thing I got it because the mornings where my friends live were cool enough to make the heater welcome. It got down below 60 inside the cabin both mornings and Dexter planted himself in front of the heater just like he used to.
Visiting my friends
Paula and Bruce live in Sandia Park just east of Albuquerque in the Sandia Mountains. Their house is at about 7,000' elevation, giving them a really different weather pattern than Albuquerque has, 2,000' below them. They told me they usually get quite high temps in the summers, but the weekend I was there was an exception with rain and cool temps both days.
We answered the requirement in New Mexico that I quarantine for 14 days by gathering at more than social distance in their garage with the doors open, and by wearing masks when we were walking the dogs. They've already been tested for the coronavirus and got welcome negative results, and I'm as sure as I can be without a test that I don't have it yet: not only am I completely asymptomatic but David and Anna, my only contacts without protection, are also asymptomatic. That seems like a statistically improbable occurrence, and my friends agreed.
I haven't seen them since their son's wedding I can't remember how many years ago, and haven't been to their house since 2008 when it was still fairly new. I saw how nice their landscaping efforts turned out - very impressive.
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| you can see they're perched up on a hill - great view |
I'd had my mind so set on the idea of staying there for at least as long as the quarantine period - which was my original idea - that I had trouble adjusting to only being there for 2 days. I was working away on my blog when it suddenly hit me that it might be another age before I saw my friends again, while I could do my blog anywhere, so I rearranged my mind and my priorities. Saturday was their 39th wedding anniversary, which I inadvertently intruded myself on. I remember their wedding, all those years ago. It was a summer for weddings: in June our friends John and Karen got married, in July it was Paula and Bruce, in August it was Prince Charles and Lady Diana, and in September it was Pete and me. Of all those, only Paula and Bruce have managed to make their marriage last. I was glad to be there for their anniversary so many years later.
I'd only planned to stay 2 days because they'd already planned to join friends for a camping trip beginning Sunday. The weather forecast pushed their plans back until Wednesday, but I'd already paid for reservations at 3 campgrounds for my subsequent travels - too many to rearrange, so I left on Sunday. New Mexico is on Mountain time, which I would have switched to except I was going to be there for so short a time; but that made adjusting to times for meals, for instance, a little trickier. It was oddly disorienting.
I took the same route both going and coming, so I'll consolidate what I saw into describing the route from Lubbock.
Driving through west Texas and eastern New Mexico
Not far outside Lubbock is a town named Shallowater - their motto: Where Pride Runs Deep.
Near Lubbock I came across several large orchards, or whatever you call them when what they produce is pecans. At least, I guess they were pecan trees because I saw signs that advertised Caprock Pecans and Lubbock Pecans. Actually, the trees looked like fruit trees, but I'm not all that good at identifying trees, especially not from a distance at highway speeds.
Near Lubbock I came across several large orchards, or whatever you call them when what they produce is pecans. At least, I guess they were pecan trees because I saw signs that advertised Caprock Pecans and Lubbock Pecans. Actually, the trees looked like fruit trees, but I'm not all that good at identifying trees, especially not from a distance at highway speeds.
I continued through or past the towns of Roundup (pop. 20), Anton (pop. 1,100), Littlefield (pop. 6,372) ("Come Visit the Hometown of Waylon Jennings"), Amherst (pop. 680), Sudan (pop. 900), and Muleshoe (pop. 5,100).
Muleshoe boasts the National Mule Memorial, the Muleshoe Heritage Foundation (exhibits about the importance of ranching to West TX), and the Muleshoe National Wildlife Refuge (important wintering area for migratory waterfowl, including the largest number of Sandhill Cranes in North America (per a state historical marker), and the oldest refuge of its kind in Texas). So much to see here I'm looking forward to coming back when I do my month in Texas. I saw a high-school-age kid wearing a t-shirt saying "We Are Muleshoe," thus dispelling a lingering idea I had that no one would want to be from a town named Muleshoe.
I passed the turnoff to the town of Earth, pop. 1,000. Apparently they'd originally named the town Fairlawn, but when it turned out there was already a Fairlawn in Texas the residents took a vote and Earth won. (I'm guessing these folks have a sense of humor.)
I passed the turnoff to the town of Earth, pop. 1,000. Apparently they'd originally named the town Fairlawn, but when it turned out there was already a Fairlawn in Texas the residents took a vote and Earth won. (I'm guessing these folks have a sense of humor.)
Not far down the road I came to a sign denoting the town of Progress, though all I saw there was a house displaying a Confederate flag. But when I looked the town up online, all my search found was an entry for Progreso, TX, near the Mexico border, and Progress, TX, which the TX State Historical Assoc. says was supposed to be over near Alpine in far west TX and its nonexistence was the basis for a land scam in the early 1900s. https://tshaonline.org/handbook So what this Progress is, I have no idea.
The land in this area is very flat, no more rolling hills. Huge fields, some planted in cotton or grain, some unplanted. All towns I passed are proud of their local school teams. I never saw Friday Night Lights, but I understand that it embodied this pride.
I was driving through a construction zone with narrow lanes when a car labeled Calvary apparently decided to trust Jesus too much and crossed the street, stopping in the lane of travel right in front of me. I managed to stop in time but it was very scarey. I don't understand why more folks don't remember "the Lord helps those who help themselves."
I started coming across feed lots with 100+ cows that were all eating from piles of hay with their heads held in a metal framework, as if for milking, though I never saw any milking apparatus.
I ended up going by 5 or 6 of these operations. And the cows didn't seem to be imprisoned there because I saw quite a few that were lying around in the sun, rather than eating. And as you can see, there were spaces available in the frames. Unusual setup. One of those places was marked "Dairy" and I don't know how to tell a dairy cow from a beef cow by sight, but these places sure looked like superior feed lots to me.
I continued to see fields of corn and some kind of grain.
And I started noticing Western Kingbirds. Pretty birds, about 9" long, with a very self-confident posture and a nice shade of yellow across their chests. Once I noticed them, I started seeing a lot of them. The bird book says they're flycatchers, found throughout the western US in the spring and summer, and leaving for South America for the winter.
Farwell, TX, (pop. 1,363) and Texico, NM, (pop. 1,100) seem to be twin cities, separated by a state border and a truly rough railroad track that all the traffic slowed way down for.
Just on the other side of the tracks began so many signs I had trouble reading them all, let alone writing them all down. They began with an electronic sign saying "Visitors Must Stay in for 14 Days." And that was the only notice of the quarantine I saw. Honestly, NM sounds so serious about that quarantine I half expected to see border checkpoints, like California used to have (and maybe still does) to restrict the importation of agricultural products (like the oranges Pete and I bought to eat - CA confiscated them).
Next was a homemade sign proclaiming "500,000 Helpless Babies Killed By Godless Liberal Socialist Democrats and ___" I missed the rest of it because it took so long to read the first part. I didn't see any explanation for how or why these allegedly godless people killed a whale of a number of babies, and I couldn't find anything about it online.
Then came a series of well-produced signs sponsored by a group called Respect New Mexico (.org). I saw them all the way to Albuquerque:
"Finally the Democrats and Republicans agree on something."
"We need to quit exporting our kids."
"Progress isn't progress if it's in the wrong direction."
"Jobs are job #1."
"Something we can all say yes to."
"New Mexico isn't California - and we like it that way."
"Catch and release is for fish, not criminals."
Their website says the group is composed of Republicans and former Democrats, which seemed a slightly unusual composition given that NM tends to vote slightly more Democrat than Republican - in national elections, at least. But I think this group wants to change that.
Another sign I saw all the way to Albuquerque were electronic signs by the state, saying "Masks make sure New Mexico kids can go back to school." Which I thought was an intelligent approach to induce mask-wearing.
New Mexico marks its towns with their elevation, not their population. So not far from the border I passed Clovis, elev. 4,260', pop. 38,000 (I looked the pop. up). My impression of this town I'd heard of for years is that it's long and undistinguished. Long because it spreads for a long way beside the highway, and undistinguished because along the road, at least, it was just a string of businesses and houses that looked tired and dusty and not particularly prosperous. Presumably, with that many residents, there's a lot of nice town somewhere off the roadway.
At this point, I should note for comparison, Lubbock's elevation is 3,256'.
Speed limits on New Mexico's highways are generally lower than those on comparable roads in Texas, by 5 or 10 mph. It was an adjustment. And gasoline is more expensive - probably a gas tax difference.
New Mexico isn't very conscientious about labeling its services for travelers: most of the rest areas I passed had no signs, either to let drivers know they were coming or even to say they were here. The dogs and I wanted to rest which is why I noticed they weren't helping me. It was irritating to be passing facilities I wanted because I couldn't prepare to exit the road to use them.
Melrose, on US 84 halfway between the border and Fort Sumner, has an elevation of 4,600'. It also has a park that I saw as we were driving by and turned several corners to get back to - we really needed a break. We saw a monument celebrating Melrose's Centennial (1905-2005). Nearby is a war memorial, commemorating Melrosians who served from the Civil War to Vietnam. It was flanked by large tablets inscribed with the 10 Commandments. Since they're still standing, I'm guessing anybody who moves to Melrose knows that it's the sort of place where the Bible ranks above the Constitution, and doesn't bother to fight it.
For a while I ran alongside a very long train full of containers, usually double stacked, with 3 train engines in the middle. Maybe some of the containers will be split off for another destination and they're carrying their own engine, rather than waiting for another to arrive.
At another time I saw a train carrying an entire military convoy - a really long one. In fact, there were more vehicles on that train - each with its own train car - than I usually see in 4 military convoys.
I saw yet another train carrying containers on wheels - I mean, each container had wheels as if it were waiting to get to its destination and would be instantly attached to a semi and hauled somewhere. Most of the containers were labeled FedEx, Costco and other national brands.
At still another time I saw a train that was carrying only tankers and boxcars - what I think of as traditional train cars. After seeing so many containers being carried on the flatbeds, it was kind of a relief to see a train that looked like I expected.
I started seeing hills in the distance, but the land here was still pretty flat.
I passed a buried house: what I saw was a long wall of windows and windowed doors set at an angle into a mound of dirt. It looked like you'd walk through the door and down steps into a room lit with these windows acting like a daylight basement. Probably very environmentally sound.
As I was driving through the area, I wondered about the prevalence of tornadoes in the state. Looking it up, I learned that NM isn't exactly a hot spot in the US, with an average of 10 or 11 a year. Most of those are in the east and southeast, which may explain why I thought of it, driving through eastern NM.
Toler, which I passed, is a ghost town I learned online. It was established in 1907 as a railroad stop, and in 1944 was the site of the worst accidental explosion in NM history when a train carrying munitions exploded there. The post office closed after this incident, causing the dwindling population to dwindle even more.
Nearby Taiban (my mind kept trying to read it as Taliban) is, according to Wikipedia, best known as the place Pat Garrett captured Billy the Kid. But according to other sources, Garrett's first capture was at Stinking Springs, NM, (and no wonder why that place no longer exists) and, after Billy escaped custody, Garrett later tracked him down and killed him at Fort Sumner. What's more, this apparently well-researched article (see link) calls Taiban "City of Dust" and makes no mention of Billy the Kid. It's an interesting article, though, with nice photos. http://elchuqueno.com/city-of-dust-taiban-new-mexico
Nearby Fort Sumner (elev. 4,060) is the location of the Bosque Redondo Memorial, commemorating the ghastly period between 1863 and 1868 when the US military imprisoned and persecuted 9,500 Navajo. There's also Billy the Kid's gravesite not far away, but my interests lie with the former. It's a place I'll visit when I do my month in NM. Ft. Sumner was also on the Goodnight-Loving cattle trail.
On the way back east, we stopped at the Ft. Sumner Library (it was closed on Sunday) to take a break. We had a hard time getting back into the RV because the dogs kept getting stickers in their feet - serious stickers that hurt them too much to walk and hurt me trying to take them out. Once we got inside I checked their paws again and found still more stickers hidden deep, plus several more in their beds. But my flip-flops kept making an odd clicking sound on the floor, and I discovered 24 embedded in the sole of one and 19 in the other (obviously actual count). Wish I'd known ahead of time and we'd have gone somewhere else.
A Chevy Volt passed a long line of cars and trucks on a hill when the speed limit was 65 mph. I had no idea an electric car had that kind of oomph.
New Mexico has signs saying, "Do Not Drive On Shoulder." What I found odd was the arrow ↓ - I can't figure out how to make that arrow slant sideways, but the arrows on the signs did - they slanted sideways to point to the shoulder, under the apparent assumption that drivers in the state don't know what a road's shoulder is. Don't they have that on their driving test?
In this area, the land consisted of vast tracts of scrubbrush and hills. The Pecos River, which I crossed, was just a trickle but it had carved quite a canyon for itself, making me think the trickle was just a result of not getting enough rain, as I heard from many folks.
On I-44 I stopped at a rest area with attractive adobe shelters for the picnic tables. It was also on a fairly high hill, making the lightning easy to see and fear. The thunder terrified Gracie so we had to cut our walk short. That weather stayed with me for the rest of the drive. This rest area had been marked with several signs saying it was coming up. The 2 farther along the road had no signs whatever; I guess you just needed to know they were there because I saw no indication of their existence until I was driving by them at highway speeds.
I passed a highway sign that said, "Gusts of wind may happen." Don't think I ever saw such a warning phrased like that.
A business called the Flying C Ranch on I-40 apparently sells everything a traveler could possibly want: fireworks, gas, bolo ties, jewelry, a Dairy Queen, and so on. Westbound they had about a dozen billboards on each side of the highway advertising all these delights. Being a compulsive reader, I don't usually mind billboards, but I got really tired of these by the time I passed this place.
Once, when I was passing a trucker, the driver sped up and made it hard to pass him. I think it was the first time a trucker's ever done that to me. Usually they're pretty polite drivers.
The land was getting more and more topography - lots of prominent hills and mesas, all covered with juniper bushes. The land itself looked a greenish beige, dotted with more juniper. I could see the Sandia Mountains in the distance.
For about 75 miles the road surface on I-40 was terrible. Made it difficult to keep my speed up safely, which I wanted to do because even Google said it was nearly a 5 hour drive, meaning a lot more for me. Okay when I was going west because of the time zone change but lousy when I headed back east and wanted to get to the campground by dinner time.
I saw fields of turf grass and alfalfa hay - and I know that's what they were because I saw signs advertising the crops.
Moriarty, about 40 miles from Albuquerque, is the home of the US Southwest Soaring Museum, demonstrating the history of gliding in the western states. Sounds interesting. There're certainly plenty of hills around here to glide from, though I'd think the winds might be a little squirrely.
Moriarty is also the location of the New Mexico DWI victims memorial, called the Perpetual Tears Memorial. It was begun in 1991 by a mother grieving for her son who was killed by a drunk driver. They want to raise awareness of the devastation drunk driving can cause, and increase public education. I suggest they start with a better website, but I'm sure they're serious about what they're doing.
McDonald's is advertising a Hatch Chile Breakfast Burrito to celebrate Hatch Chile season. Actually, I saw Hatch Chiles advertised in a few of the dishes available at a convenience store where I stopped for gasoline. New Mexico's proud of its produce, as well it should be, considering how popular they were in Austin grocery stores.
Nearing my turnoff, I passed an SUV pulling a camper - the camper's front end was almost dragging on the ground, and the SUV's rear end was also almost dragging on the ground. The driver was only going about 40 mph with his emergency lights flashing and I hope he got where he was going before somebody rear-ended him. It must have been a good story.
I turned off I-40 at Tijeras, elev. 6,300', (I told you there were some hills in this area) and climbed another 700' feet to Sandia Park, elev 7,077'. It's the home of the Tinkertown Museum, built of concrete and 55,000 bottles, with 20,000 handcarved miniatures on display. Maybe I'll stop off when I come back for my month.
Climbing up to the turnoff (right) to Sandia Park, I found I could turn left to take the National Scenic Byway (state road 536) up nearly 14 miles to Sandia Crest, elev. 10,678'. The byway is the highest scenic drive in the southwestern US, they claim. This area is also in one of the parts of the Cibolo National Forest. I'm sure it's beautiful country with wonderful views, but I'm not sure my RV belongs up there. I still had to climb higher than the 7,000' to get to my friends' house. Lots of hills in that area.
On my return drive Sunday I passed a large area where lots of people were parked around the rim of a huge pit. Most folks had set up those canopies to shade from the sun. It took a bit before I could tell what all these folks were doing, but I finally was able to see 3-and 4-wheelers racing down on the dirt track in the big pit. That's one way to keep a social distance - just sit by your vehicles, which they all seemed to be doing.
On Sunday I saw lots of semis but not much other traffic, which was a relief because I had such a long drive.
I passed a semi with a sticker on one of the rear doors that showed 2 stick figures - one throwing a wrench at the head of the other. The caption read, "To avoid injury - don't tell me how to do my job." Seemed a little violent to me. Is that where our society is now?
By really trying hard to keep up to the speed limit, I made it in to the Lubbock KOA a little before 4:00. It's a decent campground, fairly well maintained, and laid out in a way that gives the dogs and me places to walk even where there are other dogs around. Comfortable.
And now that you've seen the length of this post, you can see why I separated it from the rest of Week 16.
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| Western Kingbird |
Farwell, TX, (pop. 1,363) and Texico, NM, (pop. 1,100) seem to be twin cities, separated by a state border and a truly rough railroad track that all the traffic slowed way down for.
Just on the other side of the tracks began so many signs I had trouble reading them all, let alone writing them all down. They began with an electronic sign saying "Visitors Must Stay in for 14 Days." And that was the only notice of the quarantine I saw. Honestly, NM sounds so serious about that quarantine I half expected to see border checkpoints, like California used to have (and maybe still does) to restrict the importation of agricultural products (like the oranges Pete and I bought to eat - CA confiscated them).
Next was a homemade sign proclaiming "500,000 Helpless Babies Killed By Godless Liberal Socialist Democrats and ___" I missed the rest of it because it took so long to read the first part. I didn't see any explanation for how or why these allegedly godless people killed a whale of a number of babies, and I couldn't find anything about it online.
Then came a series of well-produced signs sponsored by a group called Respect New Mexico (.org). I saw them all the way to Albuquerque:
"Finally the Democrats and Republicans agree on something."
"We need to quit exporting our kids."
"Progress isn't progress if it's in the wrong direction."
"Jobs are job #1."
"Something we can all say yes to."
"New Mexico isn't California - and we like it that way."
"Catch and release is for fish, not criminals."
Their website says the group is composed of Republicans and former Democrats, which seemed a slightly unusual composition given that NM tends to vote slightly more Democrat than Republican - in national elections, at least. But I think this group wants to change that.
Another sign I saw all the way to Albuquerque were electronic signs by the state, saying "Masks make sure New Mexico kids can go back to school." Which I thought was an intelligent approach to induce mask-wearing.
New Mexico marks its towns with their elevation, not their population. So not far from the border I passed Clovis, elev. 4,260', pop. 38,000 (I looked the pop. up). My impression of this town I'd heard of for years is that it's long and undistinguished. Long because it spreads for a long way beside the highway, and undistinguished because along the road, at least, it was just a string of businesses and houses that looked tired and dusty and not particularly prosperous. Presumably, with that many residents, there's a lot of nice town somewhere off the roadway.
At this point, I should note for comparison, Lubbock's elevation is 3,256'.
Speed limits on New Mexico's highways are generally lower than those on comparable roads in Texas, by 5 or 10 mph. It was an adjustment. And gasoline is more expensive - probably a gas tax difference.
New Mexico isn't very conscientious about labeling its services for travelers: most of the rest areas I passed had no signs, either to let drivers know they were coming or even to say they were here. The dogs and I wanted to rest which is why I noticed they weren't helping me. It was irritating to be passing facilities I wanted because I couldn't prepare to exit the road to use them.
Melrose, on US 84 halfway between the border and Fort Sumner, has an elevation of 4,600'. It also has a park that I saw as we were driving by and turned several corners to get back to - we really needed a break. We saw a monument celebrating Melrose's Centennial (1905-2005). Nearby is a war memorial, commemorating Melrosians who served from the Civil War to Vietnam. It was flanked by large tablets inscribed with the 10 Commandments. Since they're still standing, I'm guessing anybody who moves to Melrose knows that it's the sort of place where the Bible ranks above the Constitution, and doesn't bother to fight it.
For a while I ran alongside a very long train full of containers, usually double stacked, with 3 train engines in the middle. Maybe some of the containers will be split off for another destination and they're carrying their own engine, rather than waiting for another to arrive.
At another time I saw a train carrying an entire military convoy - a really long one. In fact, there were more vehicles on that train - each with its own train car - than I usually see in 4 military convoys.
I saw yet another train carrying containers on wheels - I mean, each container had wheels as if it were waiting to get to its destination and would be instantly attached to a semi and hauled somewhere. Most of the containers were labeled FedEx, Costco and other national brands.
At still another time I saw a train that was carrying only tankers and boxcars - what I think of as traditional train cars. After seeing so many containers being carried on the flatbeds, it was kind of a relief to see a train that looked like I expected.
I started seeing hills in the distance, but the land here was still pretty flat.
I passed a buried house: what I saw was a long wall of windows and windowed doors set at an angle into a mound of dirt. It looked like you'd walk through the door and down steps into a room lit with these windows acting like a daylight basement. Probably very environmentally sound.
As I was driving through the area, I wondered about the prevalence of tornadoes in the state. Looking it up, I learned that NM isn't exactly a hot spot in the US, with an average of 10 or 11 a year. Most of those are in the east and southeast, which may explain why I thought of it, driving through eastern NM.
Toler, which I passed, is a ghost town I learned online. It was established in 1907 as a railroad stop, and in 1944 was the site of the worst accidental explosion in NM history when a train carrying munitions exploded there. The post office closed after this incident, causing the dwindling population to dwindle even more.
Nearby Taiban (my mind kept trying to read it as Taliban) is, according to Wikipedia, best known as the place Pat Garrett captured Billy the Kid. But according to other sources, Garrett's first capture was at Stinking Springs, NM, (and no wonder why that place no longer exists) and, after Billy escaped custody, Garrett later tracked him down and killed him at Fort Sumner. What's more, this apparently well-researched article (see link) calls Taiban "City of Dust" and makes no mention of Billy the Kid. It's an interesting article, though, with nice photos. http://elchuqueno.com/city-of-dust-taiban-new-mexico
Nearby Fort Sumner (elev. 4,060) is the location of the Bosque Redondo Memorial, commemorating the ghastly period between 1863 and 1868 when the US military imprisoned and persecuted 9,500 Navajo. There's also Billy the Kid's gravesite not far away, but my interests lie with the former. It's a place I'll visit when I do my month in NM. Ft. Sumner was also on the Goodnight-Loving cattle trail.
On the way back east, we stopped at the Ft. Sumner Library (it was closed on Sunday) to take a break. We had a hard time getting back into the RV because the dogs kept getting stickers in their feet - serious stickers that hurt them too much to walk and hurt me trying to take them out. Once we got inside I checked their paws again and found still more stickers hidden deep, plus several more in their beds. But my flip-flops kept making an odd clicking sound on the floor, and I discovered 24 embedded in the sole of one and 19 in the other (obviously actual count). Wish I'd known ahead of time and we'd have gone somewhere else.
A Chevy Volt passed a long line of cars and trucks on a hill when the speed limit was 65 mph. I had no idea an electric car had that kind of oomph.
New Mexico has signs saying, "Do Not Drive On Shoulder." What I found odd was the arrow ↓ - I can't figure out how to make that arrow slant sideways, but the arrows on the signs did - they slanted sideways to point to the shoulder, under the apparent assumption that drivers in the state don't know what a road's shoulder is. Don't they have that on their driving test?
In this area, the land consisted of vast tracts of scrubbrush and hills. The Pecos River, which I crossed, was just a trickle but it had carved quite a canyon for itself, making me think the trickle was just a result of not getting enough rain, as I heard from many folks.
On I-44 I stopped at a rest area with attractive adobe shelters for the picnic tables. It was also on a fairly high hill, making the lightning easy to see and fear. The thunder terrified Gracie so we had to cut our walk short. That weather stayed with me for the rest of the drive. This rest area had been marked with several signs saying it was coming up. The 2 farther along the road had no signs whatever; I guess you just needed to know they were there because I saw no indication of their existence until I was driving by them at highway speeds.
I passed a highway sign that said, "Gusts of wind may happen." Don't think I ever saw such a warning phrased like that.
A business called the Flying C Ranch on I-40 apparently sells everything a traveler could possibly want: fireworks, gas, bolo ties, jewelry, a Dairy Queen, and so on. Westbound they had about a dozen billboards on each side of the highway advertising all these delights. Being a compulsive reader, I don't usually mind billboards, but I got really tired of these by the time I passed this place.
Once, when I was passing a trucker, the driver sped up and made it hard to pass him. I think it was the first time a trucker's ever done that to me. Usually they're pretty polite drivers.
The land was getting more and more topography - lots of prominent hills and mesas, all covered with juniper bushes. The land itself looked a greenish beige, dotted with more juniper. I could see the Sandia Mountains in the distance.
For about 75 miles the road surface on I-40 was terrible. Made it difficult to keep my speed up safely, which I wanted to do because even Google said it was nearly a 5 hour drive, meaning a lot more for me. Okay when I was going west because of the time zone change but lousy when I headed back east and wanted to get to the campground by dinner time.
I saw fields of turf grass and alfalfa hay - and I know that's what they were because I saw signs advertising the crops.
Moriarty, about 40 miles from Albuquerque, is the home of the US Southwest Soaring Museum, demonstrating the history of gliding in the western states. Sounds interesting. There're certainly plenty of hills around here to glide from, though I'd think the winds might be a little squirrely.
Moriarty is also the location of the New Mexico DWI victims memorial, called the Perpetual Tears Memorial. It was begun in 1991 by a mother grieving for her son who was killed by a drunk driver. They want to raise awareness of the devastation drunk driving can cause, and increase public education. I suggest they start with a better website, but I'm sure they're serious about what they're doing.
McDonald's is advertising a Hatch Chile Breakfast Burrito to celebrate Hatch Chile season. Actually, I saw Hatch Chiles advertised in a few of the dishes available at a convenience store where I stopped for gasoline. New Mexico's proud of its produce, as well it should be, considering how popular they were in Austin grocery stores.
Nearing my turnoff, I passed an SUV pulling a camper - the camper's front end was almost dragging on the ground, and the SUV's rear end was also almost dragging on the ground. The driver was only going about 40 mph with his emergency lights flashing and I hope he got where he was going before somebody rear-ended him. It must have been a good story.
I turned off I-40 at Tijeras, elev. 6,300', (I told you there were some hills in this area) and climbed another 700' feet to Sandia Park, elev 7,077'. It's the home of the Tinkertown Museum, built of concrete and 55,000 bottles, with 20,000 handcarved miniatures on display. Maybe I'll stop off when I come back for my month.
Climbing up to the turnoff (right) to Sandia Park, I found I could turn left to take the National Scenic Byway (state road 536) up nearly 14 miles to Sandia Crest, elev. 10,678'. The byway is the highest scenic drive in the southwestern US, they claim. This area is also in one of the parts of the Cibolo National Forest. I'm sure it's beautiful country with wonderful views, but I'm not sure my RV belongs up there. I still had to climb higher than the 7,000' to get to my friends' house. Lots of hills in that area.
On my return drive Sunday I passed a large area where lots of people were parked around the rim of a huge pit. Most folks had set up those canopies to shade from the sun. It took a bit before I could tell what all these folks were doing, but I finally was able to see 3-and 4-wheelers racing down on the dirt track in the big pit. That's one way to keep a social distance - just sit by your vehicles, which they all seemed to be doing.
On Sunday I saw lots of semis but not much other traffic, which was a relief because I had such a long drive.
I passed a semi with a sticker on one of the rear doors that showed 2 stick figures - one throwing a wrench at the head of the other. The caption read, "To avoid injury - don't tell me how to do my job." Seemed a little violent to me. Is that where our society is now?
By really trying hard to keep up to the speed limit, I made it in to the Lubbock KOA a little before 4:00. It's a decent campground, fairly well maintained, and laid out in a way that gives the dogs and me places to walk even where there are other dogs around. Comfortable.
And now that you've seen the length of this post, you can see why I separated it from the rest of Week 16.
