WST: Final Reflections

While driving home from Charlotte, I pondered this experience and want to share some thoughts/realizations:

• I can live in the same room with someone else for more than a week and still be civil.
• I discovered "Mountain Monograms," something very new to a Florida flatlander.
• Traveling with the opportunity to do regular loads of laundry makes a HUGE difference. I believe next time I can manage two weeks with a small carry-on or a big backpack!!!
• Nancy and FB have many conversation topics in common since they live in the same state and are politically aware.
• My brother’s sense of humor is wickedly dry.
• Never travel without Febreze.
• A metal fork is worth "borrowing."
• Railroad maintenance is a precise endeavor.
• Lewis and Clark were braver than I thought.
• Powder River Basin coal is everywhere in the West.
• I never associated South Dakota with oil wells.  
• Sage smell permeates everything west of the Missouri River.
• I stood on a the rim of a caldera!
• There must be a hundred Indian tribes in this country!
• This vast land is "stoic;" also, intoxicating, monotonous, monochromatic, amazing, and enthralling.
• "Sheep rocks." Inside the car joke.
• Al Capone's legacy is stronger than Eliot Ness's.
• "Ignoranus" - stupid and an asshole. (from Stone Barrington audio book.)
• Thomas Jefferson was not a trusting soul; he expected conspiracies.
• Nancy is droll when you last expect it.
• Central pivot irrigators changed farming.
• The Missouri River is the embodiment of sinuous.
• Most of the “West” is shades of brown and yellow.
• The Great Plains are intimidating even in a car doing 80 MPH; I cannot imagine how endless they must have seemed to the passengers in a Prairie Schooner.
• The Kia Sedona is a great car for three adults traveling together; everyone has enough room for their incidentals.
• The "Law of Large Tonnage" means the bigger boat wins!
• Never stay in motel that costs less than $60 a night.
• Morning coffee-drinkers are bemused by those of us who are cold caffeine drinkers.
• The Internet is everywhere (almost); we only had “No Service” in three places during all that driving. So, I was never frustrated for very long when I wanted an answer to something, like “What are the mounds we just passed?” or “What’s the size of the Little Bighorn battlefield?”
• Mom is still with us; we talked about her almost every day.
• Traveling requires cooperation and concession.
• Electric coolers are wonderful. (Thank you, Jean!)
• Three weeks are too long for a traveling vacation; 10-14 days would be much better.

WST Day 18: Home at last

FB and I left the Best Western in Leeds, AL with all speed as we were each ready to be off the road.

I remembered to document the item that had been lodged in the passenger rear tire for quite a while. Even FB was amazed about its size. Nancy and I were amazed that a non-pointed object could penetrate a tire. Shows how little we knew!

The final hours sped by. The road was great. the weather as perfect as it has been the entire trip; we were blessed by the climate gods! Just enough rain to make it interesting and only when we were driving on in for the night. Example, as we drove out of Arches National Park, the skies were darkening and rain was falling on those poor souls who waited in line for ages to walk the trails.

I tried to capture the skyline of Atlanta, but failed as I couldn't get the phone to erase the highway crossings! Sigh! I thought my iPhone could do anything!

We arrived at the Gray Moss Road, unloaded and, for a brief time I contemplated spending the night - I even did a small load of wash. But, after a bit, I decided I REALLY wanted to sleep in my own bed, so I drove on home after I put my un-dried laundry in a bag.

Before I left, FB finished the map of this first memorial trip for Mom. We drove 6, 627 miles!! We're planning a second excursion next year to the Great Lakes. That one will go on the map in another color.

I actually drove more, since I had the Middleburg-Charlotte round trip, but FB and I concurred those miles were not part of the trek.

I'll post one more WST blog entry  as a final reflection when I've been home a day or two.

WST Day 17: East Bound and Down

Yesterday, after I blogged, I exited the bathroom after my shower and immediately heard the smoke alarm beeping. I dressed and went downstairs to find the desk clerk apologetic but calming. It appears the alarm sensor is directly opposite the bathroom door and the steam escaping frequently upsets the sensor! I believe the hotel should "alert" clients of that design flaw.

FB and I got on the road at 6:40 this morning when we realized this Holiday Inn did not serve breakfast until 7:15 on Sundays. The drive was pleasant and uneventful, made easier once we learned Nance had made her flight to Denver, so would be home tonight!



As we crossed the Mississippi into Arkansas, I tried to capture a (according to FB) rare image - a tugboat pushing a barge down Ole Man River. Look carefully through the bridge slats and you'll see it.


In Alabama, I received my final wish for the trip: a rainbow! I took a shaky picture. FB noted that all was very good. We rounded a curve as we came over the top of a "hill" and WHAMMO!! A Double Rainbow!! The first I've ever seen and the second for FB!  My photo doesn't really capture how cool it was! I guess shooting through a tinted windshield doesn't improve the quality of the light refraction!!!

We listened to an entire audio book (Extreme Prey) and the time passed by quickly. Not a lot of conversation, I believe we have become comfortable with each other.

Tomorrow we arrive in Charlotte and Tuesday I head for home. Sigh! My own bed awaits!!!!!

WST Day 16: Santa Fe in the rearview mirror

Santa Fe had no good vibes for us.

Nancy and I woke up at 5:45 AM to be ready at 6:30 to ask FB take her to the Santa Fe airport to check in and get her boarding pass, then bring her back to the hotel where I'd arranged for a 1:00 PM check out as her flight didn't leave until 4:30.

As Nance opened our door, FB called to say he'd be missing breakfast because he was taking the Kia to a garage to check the tire that has been losing pressure. Nancy and I wait and wait and wait. At 8:36, he calls that tire is fixed and we are on the road in 10 minutes.

We drive up to Santa Fe Municipal Airport and are staggered! THIS is the air terminal for a state capital???? OMG!! No obvious TSA clearance. only two airline desks: United and American; neither is staffed until 1:00 PM! Nancy decides to stay at airport. Later we find she has been bumped until tomorrow morning out of Albuquerque!!! She is handling this well; but, really, what can she do once she is caught in the tentacles of air travel???

FB and I motor on toward Elk City, Oklahoma and the National Route 66 Museum. We opt for lunch in Tucumcari, New Mexico, for a fabulous Mexican lunch at Del's, which has been a Route 66 restaurant since 1956. Leo, our waiter, is a hoot and surprises us with sopapillas for dessert. My first, but not my last!!. I am bummed by this small city, it is so many carcasses of former motels and eateries that withered when I-40 was built. I am looking forward to Elk City and enjoying Route 66 in all its glory.  I discover when checking on opening times that the museum is closed on Sunday. We decide to stay in Elk City regardless. 

Just before Amarillo,  we drive by at least 75 miles of wind turbine farms! Turns out wind power supplies about 11.7% of Texas' annual electric power!! One "farm" we pass is the Wildorado Wind Ranch! 16,000 acres of wind turbines. Amazing.


 Then a bit farther we come to another "farm" but this one has not started powering up yet, so all the100+ turbines are motionless and silent. It's kind of like like watching ghosts standing by waiting for the "Boo".  FB says this motionlessness is very unusual as they normally start wind turbines in groups of 3-5 to begin generating power (and money) immediately.



We keep paralleling the original Route 66, so here are the current I-40 and the infamous 66. Can you guess which is which???

Yesterday, I crossed over the Rio Grande, today I cross over the Red River, except it's brown and not very appealing.

The Texas Pamhandle looks like I thought it would.  I keep expecting John Wayne to appear on the horizon riding through the sage to rescue someone or defend something or just fight for the sake of a good cleansing brawl. (Can you tell we are listening to the latest Lucas Davenport adventure?)


We stopped for gas at the Alanreed, Texas Conoco station, where the general store is also the post office. Chatting with the Post Mistress/ store owner, I find she has been to only three other states in her 60+ years. She is happy and content in her place! She tells me Route 66 is 90 years old this year! I celebrate by buying a very cool labeled bottle of red blend.

We get takeout salad, eat in room, discuss next year's Great Lakes tour, agreeing on 10 days max!!!  Our trip to Antlers is cancelled due to a scheduling conflict. I will go out there in September for several days. I am ready for bed as tomorrow we head for home.

WST Day 15: Lava Walking and La Ventana

I've concluded that a huge portion of road-tripping is the in-car speculating about what is seen as you travel. We spied these dirt mounds past Gallup, NM off I-40 this morning. At first we thought they were a housing of some sort. No, Nancy checked them out with the binoculars and reported the utter lack of roads or trails and that they resembled dirt mounds. I, of course, googled and  discovered Fort Wingate has storage facilities for "demilitarizing" weapons material before recycling them. AHA! Drat! FB was correct again as his guess was "something military - the lines are too straight for anything else." Down the road a bit, we spied two parallel plumes of white smoke rising from behind a hill. I suggested controlled burn. Nance disagreed, explaining about how smoke looked. FB drove. Binocular use, again, proved the plumes were coming from stacks near a HUGE building.   How could anyone be bored in a car?

Last night FB suggested we visit El Malpais National Monument between Gallup and Albuquerque, after all Nancy needs another stamp on her National Parks Passport.

El Malpais is Spanish for "The Badlands." These badlands are sandstone cliffs and volcanic lava tubes, caves and flows. I was more concerned with the multitudinous rattlesnake notifications.

The Sandstone Bluffs over looked lava tubes and caves (the hole remnants of former volcanic eruptions). The cliff was an experience. Nancy even braved her fear of heights to venture to the cliff top for a while.

 

Although you have to look closely, you can see the hole left by the eruption as the volcano kind of collapsed on itself millions of years ago. remember, we are hundreds of feet up on the top of the bluff and I declined to get too close to the unfenced-off edge.

When we spoke with the Ranger, I opted (vociferously) not to explore the caves and the tubes, so Nance had to bit the bullet on seeing an ice cave in New Mexico.





On the plus side, we saw a couple of bands of wild ponies and a big ole deer ran across the road and jumped the fence separating the National Park lands from the Acoma Reservation and the National Conservation area.

Lava is amazing. and seems to provide a fertile growing base. We saw so much yarrow growing on the lava berms (really, lava tubes) abutting the roadway, that Nancy quipped, "That shit is like the kudzu of New Mexico!"

We drove to the Lava Falls and thoroughly enjoyed walking on lava. Even though I expected a waterfall type scene, the flows went on for yards and yards. We could have explored for a long while but I was skittish about those danged rattlesnakes while I was in shorts and Sketchers.

Next we climbed the path/trail to view  La Ventana (The Window).

This arch faces I-40 and the place is so quiet, you can hear the cars zooming by in the distance as the sound rebounds off the rock face.

El Malpais also offered a flowering cactus which was off set by the experience of using a toilet that was propped open with a 20 pound chunk of sandstone. (No picture of that!) I sang aloud, just in case anyone came near.

An aside: in regard to national park toilets, ALWAYS wait for the ones marked for handicap users as they have a stool device for sitting; the non-handicap user ones have a pit.

We arrived in Santa Fe full of promise and anticipation to be met by streets so narrow and twisty a Bostonian would have choked, THEN the sky darkened and the rains fell for quite awhile. We felt no good vibe and went to hotel after a brief stop at Larry's Wine Barn for some New Mexican grape.

Nancy leaves tomorrow. The car will not be the same without her. I even got accustomed to sleeping in the same room with her - a HUGE compliment (to us both!)

WST Day 14: Arches, Four Corners and The Navaho Nation

We were at Arches National Park at 6:38 this morning - we were so early that the fee was waived. The place is astounding. the weather was perfect - slightly overcast and about 71. Again, pictures can not capture the essence of this park.

Dawn over the canyon lands is an experience everyone needs to have, walking among the rocks and spaces in the total silence made me aware (yet again) of the spiritual elements of life.

Look below the fossil....can you see the bird eating a fish?

We had read that early park arrival was better than later. We drove in with no one before us or after us. When we left the park at 9:12 AM, this was the line awaiting entrance!

After the Arches, we paused in Moab and FB found me a quilt shop!! What a thoughtful brother!!!

We wound our way through the Navaho Nation to Four Corners, the spot where Utah, Arizona, Colorado and New Mexico meet. The Monument is respectfully presented in part of the Navaho reservation and the tribe maintains it. We chose a slightly unorthodox selfie as none of us really like having our picture taken.

The ride through the length of the Reservation on the way to Gallup to spend the night convinced us that most of the West is interchangeable in pictures: wheat field, sage, yarrow, blue sky, distance mountains and shades of brown and green. Then Shiprock loomed out of the land like something from Tolkien. It is sacred to the Navaho people, thus cannot be climbed. Basically a volcanic plug, in summer evenings it seems to "float" on the fields surrounding it.

WST Day 13: Finish of Wednesday's blog - Onward through Utah

Letting you know off the bat - we made our 5:30 AM leave-time from Green River, Utah this morning, so going to bed early was a great idea!!!

Back to yesterday's trip section. That drive on 50 and 70 was phenomenal. We went in and out of rain storms to arrive safely in Green River. We relished the scenery through the Monarch Pass in Utah; do you think you might, as well?

And what did I learn today?  Nancy used her geography skills learned at Delaware to navigate us through the wilds of southern Utah...not a place with many interstates. According to one store clerk we spoke with, we brought rain to Utah. Zane Grey could not have a chosen a better locale for his Western stories than this wild, untamed area of the country. There are Oregon brown, Utah brown, Idaho brown, and Dakota brown. FB shared a family legend - Dad prevented a possible catastrophe by pointing out to a mother that her children were teasing a huge gorilla (the famous Carlos) who had previously broken the glass barrier, "See that plywood panel right there." The rain washed the dust from the air and it was like watching HDTV through the windshield.

Final notes:
1. New Mayer Family acronym: WWMKD - What would Mimi Kaye do?
2. FB mapped how far we've gone! OMG!!! As of now we are in New Mexico!! The journey continues.