If you ever drive from Colorado to Texas, bring bean dip. It is absolutely essential. Bean dip is the perfect sustenance for a journey that involves an incredibly open and slowly flattening landscape, exits with no services, entire towns that smell like either crapping animals or processed animals, and a wonderfully haunting emptiness.
I also recommend those handy "Scoop" tortilla chips.
My friend Shari was my traveling companion and partner in speed-related crime. She had just returned from Paris. The cops could smell it on her.
I really believe that the key to a successful road trip is side-trips. On my first road trip, from New York to Colorado, my desires to stop at the Buffalo Bill and corn husking museums were declared void by the front seat because I didn't know how to drive a stick. This time no such opportunities were missed.
We saw Billy the Kid's grave. It was monumental.
We posed in front of interesting signs.
We helped the pioneers with the laundry...
and apple picking. I didn't have the heart to tell the young man on the ladder he was harvesting out of season.
Between bean dip sessions, we took time to stretch.
We pulled over in New Mexico at a church that was in ruins. It was beautiful.
Maybe the most successful part of the trip was the shopping.
The highway wasn't crowded with hipsters, so the antique stores and flea markets were fresh, which means: Tons of owls! For cheap! I collected three new owls, two of them being hot plates, for about $2. I think the hot plates will come in handy when I set up my homestead. But I will always cherish my memory of the original owl wall.
We stopped for a night in Lubbock, where we failed to convince the night auditor we were only one person. In the morning, Shari nearly died from overexposure to MTV's spring break.
Fortunately, we made it safely and happily to Austin, after aforementioned run in with the traffic police. What a buzzkill.
No comments:
Post a Comment