Abroad In The Land
Posted 11-08-2009 at 12:50 PM by The Rob
Know what's awesome? Not in the continent-forming, solar flare, oceans rising to conquer the land sense, but in the d00d! sense of the word as it's used in parlance these days?
[There's a picture here, but FG's photo limit said NO!]
Road trips. Road trips rock.
Give me a car (and while you're at it, a competent driver, because I don't like to eat and drive at the same time and we should all be grateful for this), a couple of Micky Diaz's sausage bisquits, a tallish coffee, and a strip of asphalt that goes a ways, and I'm guh-roovin'. Particularly if the asphalt wends it's way across an American state made for said wending. Like, say, New Mexico.
It's not a surprise that the apogee of our rolling orbit was Roswell. I hesitate to say "destination", because the best road trips don't have destinations, they have only filling stations and rest stops and restaurants offering fried delicacies in grease-sodden wrappers, good solid American road food that necessitates a knowledge of the whereabouts of the establishment's defibrillator or set of jumper cables. The missus and I didn't want to focus on an end point. We wanted to glide through the landscape and absorb.
The Willamette Valley in Oregon reveals it's emerald secrets a little at a time as one follows a writhing road, and even the clouds conspire to keep it under wraps. It's a tease, like a flirtation. New Mexico's eastern plains are like a Sumo belly bump. It's here and it's there and it's way over there, and it resists cuddling and it demands awe and respect. It's worked damned hard over the course of millenia to be what it is, you betta recognize. And that glorious, dangerous sunlight just pours over all of it.
[There's a picture here, but FG's photo limit said NO!]
I've read that one of the ways New Mexicans identify Texans is by how they pronounce Ruidoso "Reeyo-dosa", and that's exactly how the missus pronounces it. Forgive her, please. She lived in Texas even longer than me. Ruidoso is beautiful and surprisingly Oregonish in places. And touristy. Ah well. We don't gamble (well, I don't) but next time we'll hike some trails there.
Roswell. What can I say? Well, I can say that my first home town* needs to get shy of quite a few bug-eyed mannequins and posters and crap. When I lived there, Roswell had no need to look to the mysterious heavens for revenue. It had Walker Air Force Base, where my dad was stationed. Alas, Walker shut down in 1967 and we moved to Ramey AFB on the magical isle of Puerto Rico, and in my absence the town was over-run with unearthly kitch. Aliens on shop windows. Alien heads on lamp posts. Aliens selling coffee and beer. Inflatable ETs hawking furniture and books. A "UFO Museum" (that was actually in the silly-but-cool category even with the cheesy fifth-grader dioramas, and cudos to the optimistic nerds who've managed to grow it into quite the going concern and are living the dream) that will soon move into an even larger facility thanks to the donations of like-minded sky-gogglers and conspiracy fans. It's all just too too much. The citizens of the town of Corona, which is actually closer than Roswell to the alleged crash site, should daily face southeast and raise their hands and voices in gratitude.
Underneath all the otherweirdly junk is a pleasantly modest, lived-in-looking town. In ways Roswell reminds me of Abilene, Texas (my second home town, and another place I hope to visit soon). I can actually visualize myself living in Roswell again (although I'd be divorced; I have this on good authority). Of course I had to find the house I lived in as a kid, so that's what we went looking for first. I just pretty much asked my wife to head in a general direction, and said something like "We'll have to find a map somewhere, it's not like I know my way around anymore..."
And we went right to it. Spooky.
Those of you who've followed this blog for awhile will probably recognize the house, but this time I was the one taking the picture. At the last second I couldn't bring myself to step out of the car because I thought it was suspicious-looking enough to be snapping photos from the car without actually strolling the sidewalk like I owned it. People get twitchy about that kind of thing, and twitchy people call the police, and REALLY twitchy people might reach for a baseball bat. As it is, I kind of hope no one in that neighborhood reads this, because even though it's part of a cherished memory, I still felt like an intruder.
As we rounded a corner at the far end of the street I was pointing out things I remembered that no longer existed. A friend's house, the friend's name long forgotten; the corral fence that bordered his front yard, and now girded only by cracked curb; the vast open pit across the alley that we used to call the boondocks, full of dirt mounds and roots called devils horns and junked and rusting cars, now mostly filled in and a lot smaller than I recall; the Piggly Wiggly that once stood just a couple blocks away now replaced with a Dollar General.
[There's a picture here, but FG's photo limit said NO!]
After a tour of the UFO Museum, we had lunch at a Cattle Baron restaurant (over-priced and nothing special), and then got directions to Valley View Elementary School from two cheerful young waitresses. Again, we had no trouble finding our way.
[There's a picture here, but FG's photo limit said NO!
Except for the newish playground equipment, it looked just how I remembered it. I don't recall the sign being there, but it may have been.
In my day our classes had Halloween parties, not "Fall festivals". Dang fundy-mentals.
Finally, we chased the sun homeward, watched the day fade into gold and then into sepia.
[There's a picture here, but FG's photo limit said NO!]
Great trip. I might even go back and spend a weekend in Roswell sometime soon.
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I usually get up at 5 a.m., and I'm at the gym by six at least two or three mornings per week. The other mornings, I hit the sidewalk and walk for an hour.
Weight-lifting is good for you, it's a good way to lift your metabolism and maintain tone. It's also a sort of hydraulic fake labor, convenient only because it beats keeping boulders to throw around in your back yard (front yard if you're a show-off). Lifting is necessary to stave off the middle-age blobular silhouette, but no way is it FUN.
Walking is fun. And mood-enhancing. And educational. And spiritual.
On one walk I saw three coyotes cross Eubank and intersect my path (or maybe it was two coyotes, one of them twice). As I walked further and turned down the North Piņo Arroyo Trail, I was paced by roadrunners and bunnies and lizards in the underbrush. On another walk I discovered neighborhoods near home that had escaped the fauxdobe glut by some miracle, and I strode the sidewalk wide-awake past slippered and still-groggy newspaper collectors and a few dawn patrol dog-walkers. Not one looked in my direction. Maybe most folk aren't quite ready to be assailed by the presence of other humans that early, who knows? Once upon a time I was the nocturnal sort and didn't gaze upon the world before noon willingly, so I guess I can relate. I try not to miss a sunrise now, though. An hour's walk and then home to greet the missus with a cup of coffee as she levers herself upright to seize the day. That's the stuff.
I recommend going for a walk.
(* I was born in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, but I don't count that as my home town because I feel you should be able to do more in your home town than dribble on yourself. Thus, Roswell was my first home town.)
[There's a picture here, but FG's photo limit said NO!]
Road trips. Road trips rock.
Give me a car (and while you're at it, a competent driver, because I don't like to eat and drive at the same time and we should all be grateful for this), a couple of Micky Diaz's sausage bisquits, a tallish coffee, and a strip of asphalt that goes a ways, and I'm guh-roovin'. Particularly if the asphalt wends it's way across an American state made for said wending. Like, say, New Mexico.
It's not a surprise that the apogee of our rolling orbit was Roswell. I hesitate to say "destination", because the best road trips don't have destinations, they have only filling stations and rest stops and restaurants offering fried delicacies in grease-sodden wrappers, good solid American road food that necessitates a knowledge of the whereabouts of the establishment's defibrillator or set of jumper cables. The missus and I didn't want to focus on an end point. We wanted to glide through the landscape and absorb.
The Willamette Valley in Oregon reveals it's emerald secrets a little at a time as one follows a writhing road, and even the clouds conspire to keep it under wraps. It's a tease, like a flirtation. New Mexico's eastern plains are like a Sumo belly bump. It's here and it's there and it's way over there, and it resists cuddling and it demands awe and respect. It's worked damned hard over the course of millenia to be what it is, you betta recognize. And that glorious, dangerous sunlight just pours over all of it.
[There's a picture here, but FG's photo limit said NO!]
I've read that one of the ways New Mexicans identify Texans is by how they pronounce Ruidoso "Reeyo-dosa", and that's exactly how the missus pronounces it. Forgive her, please. She lived in Texas even longer than me. Ruidoso is beautiful and surprisingly Oregonish in places. And touristy. Ah well. We don't gamble (well, I don't) but next time we'll hike some trails there.
Roswell. What can I say? Well, I can say that my first home town* needs to get shy of quite a few bug-eyed mannequins and posters and crap. When I lived there, Roswell had no need to look to the mysterious heavens for revenue. It had Walker Air Force Base, where my dad was stationed. Alas, Walker shut down in 1967 and we moved to Ramey AFB on the magical isle of Puerto Rico, and in my absence the town was over-run with unearthly kitch. Aliens on shop windows. Alien heads on lamp posts. Aliens selling coffee and beer. Inflatable ETs hawking furniture and books. A "UFO Museum" (that was actually in the silly-but-cool category even with the cheesy fifth-grader dioramas, and cudos to the optimistic nerds who've managed to grow it into quite the going concern and are living the dream) that will soon move into an even larger facility thanks to the donations of like-minded sky-gogglers and conspiracy fans. It's all just too too much. The citizens of the town of Corona, which is actually closer than Roswell to the alleged crash site, should daily face southeast and raise their hands and voices in gratitude.
Underneath all the otherweirdly junk is a pleasantly modest, lived-in-looking town. In ways Roswell reminds me of Abilene, Texas (my second home town, and another place I hope to visit soon). I can actually visualize myself living in Roswell again (although I'd be divorced; I have this on good authority). Of course I had to find the house I lived in as a kid, so that's what we went looking for first. I just pretty much asked my wife to head in a general direction, and said something like "We'll have to find a map somewhere, it's not like I know my way around anymore..."
And we went right to it. Spooky.
Those of you who've followed this blog for awhile will probably recognize the house, but this time I was the one taking the picture. At the last second I couldn't bring myself to step out of the car because I thought it was suspicious-looking enough to be snapping photos from the car without actually strolling the sidewalk like I owned it. People get twitchy about that kind of thing, and twitchy people call the police, and REALLY twitchy people might reach for a baseball bat. As it is, I kind of hope no one in that neighborhood reads this, because even though it's part of a cherished memory, I still felt like an intruder.
As we rounded a corner at the far end of the street I was pointing out things I remembered that no longer existed. A friend's house, the friend's name long forgotten; the corral fence that bordered his front yard, and now girded only by cracked curb; the vast open pit across the alley that we used to call the boondocks, full of dirt mounds and roots called devils horns and junked and rusting cars, now mostly filled in and a lot smaller than I recall; the Piggly Wiggly that once stood just a couple blocks away now replaced with a Dollar General.
[There's a picture here, but FG's photo limit said NO!]
After a tour of the UFO Museum, we had lunch at a Cattle Baron restaurant (over-priced and nothing special), and then got directions to Valley View Elementary School from two cheerful young waitresses. Again, we had no trouble finding our way.
[There's a picture here, but FG's photo limit said NO!
Except for the newish playground equipment, it looked just how I remembered it. I don't recall the sign being there, but it may have been.
In my day our classes had Halloween parties, not "Fall festivals". Dang fundy-mentals.
Finally, we chased the sun homeward, watched the day fade into gold and then into sepia.
[There's a picture here, but FG's photo limit said NO!]
Great trip. I might even go back and spend a weekend in Roswell sometime soon.
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
I usually get up at 5 a.m., and I'm at the gym by six at least two or three mornings per week. The other mornings, I hit the sidewalk and walk for an hour.
Weight-lifting is good for you, it's a good way to lift your metabolism and maintain tone. It's also a sort of hydraulic fake labor, convenient only because it beats keeping boulders to throw around in your back yard (front yard if you're a show-off). Lifting is necessary to stave off the middle-age blobular silhouette, but no way is it FUN.
Walking is fun. And mood-enhancing. And educational. And spiritual.
On one walk I saw three coyotes cross Eubank and intersect my path (or maybe it was two coyotes, one of them twice). As I walked further and turned down the North Piņo Arroyo Trail, I was paced by roadrunners and bunnies and lizards in the underbrush. On another walk I discovered neighborhoods near home that had escaped the fauxdobe glut by some miracle, and I strode the sidewalk wide-awake past slippered and still-groggy newspaper collectors and a few dawn patrol dog-walkers. Not one looked in my direction. Maybe most folk aren't quite ready to be assailed by the presence of other humans that early, who knows? Once upon a time I was the nocturnal sort and didn't gaze upon the world before noon willingly, so I guess I can relate. I try not to miss a sunrise now, though. An hour's walk and then home to greet the missus with a cup of coffee as she levers herself upright to seize the day. That's the stuff.
I recommend going for a walk.
(* I was born in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, but I don't count that as my home town because I feel you should be able to do more in your home town than dribble on yourself. Thus, Roswell was my first home town.)
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