Come the end of July the forecast was for more earth-buckling heat, the same as it had been for weeks around here, only the coming week it was going to be even hotter. Time to leave town.
Several things on the itinerary, including go where it is cooler, maybe see some rain (which we had not seen for months here in Texas), stop by to see daughter Inga in her new digs in Eugene, Oregon where she is entering her Junior year at the University of Oregon. Then we were to continue on up to Western Washington to join with the other six Cook Clan siblings + families in early August to place some closure on the passing of Sue's father who passed away on New year's Day this year. Thrown into the trail mix were opportunities to visit my sister in Idaho and parents in Montana before returning to Dallas for a day of rest and then taking Grant to the University of Missouri to move him into his dorm for his freshman year.
Northwest Passages I
Garland to Wichita Falls -- We've done this before. Not a lot of preparation needed for our passage to the Northwest, just pack a few clothes, a little bit of camping gear and a car-jack phone charger and we are off. We leave town Friday afternoon with just a short trip to Wichita Falls where we enjoy the hospitality of Sue's brother Bill and his wife, Susan. Wichita Falls is less than 150 miles from home, but it affords us a chance to get a leg up and launch our major westward driving without having to squeeze and grind through Metroplex traffic at the start of a big day. We have dinner with the Texas Cooks, catch up on family and life events, say good night and retire to the master bedroom that has been graciously given up for our comfort. Up decently early the next morning, shower and pack for the longest driving day of them all - destination Utah.
As we pack, my wife notices that, "Hey, what a coincidence, my sister-in-law has the very same hairbrush that I do." Later that night, "Hey, has anybody seen my hairbrush?" "What, the one that looks just like the one Susan has in her bathroom back in Wichita Falls?" It is an Ah-Ha moment. Maybe we did get up just a tad too early. Oh well, nothing a trip to Wal*Mart can't fix to replace the hairbrush left behind.
We see miles and miles of Texas. We drive pass the Cadillac Ranch west of Amarillo where half-a-dozen vintage Cadillacs are buried at a 30 degree angle, grill first, into the red earth of the Texas panhandle.
This is art - or so I am told.
Always a group of people stopped along the I-40 interstate to mosey on out to see and photograph the strange crop. There are mysteries on the plains, Stonehenge and Cadillac Ranch. It is a good thing to salt the mysterious and unexpected amidst the monotony. I applaud planting cadillacs with King Cotton.
Four Corners -- Aware of the subtle changing topography, we drop off the Llano Estacado (Staked Plain of the early Spanish Explorers) and into the rifted basins of New Mexico, identified by the transformed geology, where jet-black volcanic basalts are now appearing off the shoulder of the highway. We gratefully gain an hour as we reset the car clock to Mountain Time. It is also lunch time as we drive off I-40 and onto the by-passed main street of Tucumcari. The majority of the buildings are dust-blown, abandoned hulks of pre-Interstate commerce serving the traveling public, presumably heading west after the war. It is the old Route 66, with dilapidated motor hotels and diners and now failed businesses often with architecture rendered in a Western and Indian theme that was once so exotic and fascinating for the newly mobile US population in the 1950's and 60's. Grant says he is sad to see a town look like this, largely by-passed and left behind, and would be happy to have Tucumcari in our rear-view mirror. Sentiments obviously shared by many others. But, in honor of the faded glory of what we once thought the American West to be, we stop and buy lunch at a long established diner. I eat their chicken-fried steak, and they take my plastic dollars. I wish them well and hope they are still holding down the fort the next time my wagon train travels through.
We zip across the Rio Grande in Albuquerque, going further into the desert where Indian Nations have set up blazing beacons of flashing mammoth signals in gaudy colors, imploring the those with a weak wallet to stop in an try their luck at the "loosest slots on earth". The house always wins. The advice given to those early pioneers traveling through Apache country on the Santa Fe Trail still applies: Hang onto your scalp.
We cut off the interstate and head north toward the magnificent Ship Rock as the sun sits low on the horizon.
We catch some rain, part of the summer storm systems that have continually skirted around the high pressure system that has been sitting over Dallas all summer, making it a wet summer for everyone but Texas. It is right to see rain and lightning over the desert, though this is a camping night, which could make things interesting. We are now navigating across small, two-lane state highways, bobbing and weaving to get to our camp in southeastern Utah. I mention to Grant that this is the "Four Corners" region, the only place in the US where 4 state are contiguously joined, and that there is a marker where you can get down on all fours and be in Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado and Utah at the same instant. Grant asks, have you ever done that? I say, no - I am usually in a hurry to get somewhere and have never been to the exact four corners spot. Grant suggests (with a deserved dig at my philosophy); why don't we go there now? You know, "Enjoy the journey", right Dad? Touche. It is time for this kid to leave home, he knows too well how to get to me.
I might as well have been a third grader on the playground who had just been double-dogged dared. I had no choice but to ask my wife for the quickest route to the Four Corners Monument. I am crestfallen to see the rangers swinging the gate to the Four Corners Visitors Center to the locked position. As they lock the gate, the sign on the outside reads: Monument Closes at 8 PM. It was 8:00. I am proud of Grant for the impromptu prod to go and see something new and distinctive. I am sorry that it is true that "Timing is everything". If I'd only listened to my mother who always told me to "drive fast and take chances", then maybe we could have gotten to the Four Corners before they closed.
Somebody who got into 4 Corners before the gate was locked
With our headlights on, we circled back to the highway and drive toward the mountain tops covered with roiling dark clouds, intermittently lit like Chinese lanterns by flashes of lightning. The darkening sky spits, piddles and pours onto my windshield, but I roll down the side windows to deeply inhale the special smell of desert sage on a newly rain-wetted earth. This primal scent is guaranteed to unweary the bones, settle the mind and cleanse the lungs. An evening thunderstorm on the American Desert. Good Stuff.
Several things on the itinerary, including go where it is cooler, maybe see some rain (which we had not seen for months here in Texas), stop by to see daughter Inga in her new digs in Eugene, Oregon where she is entering her Junior year at the University of Oregon. Then we were to continue on up to Western Washington to join with the other six Cook Clan siblings + families in early August to place some closure on the passing of Sue's father who passed away on New year's Day this year. Thrown into the trail mix were opportunities to visit my sister in Idaho and parents in Montana before returning to Dallas for a day of rest and then taking Grant to the University of Missouri to move him into his dorm for his freshman year.
Northwest Passages I
Garland to Wichita Falls -- We've done this before. Not a lot of preparation needed for our passage to the Northwest, just pack a few clothes, a little bit of camping gear and a car-jack phone charger and we are off. We leave town Friday afternoon with just a short trip to Wichita Falls where we enjoy the hospitality of Sue's brother Bill and his wife, Susan. Wichita Falls is less than 150 miles from home, but it affords us a chance to get a leg up and launch our major westward driving without having to squeeze and grind through Metroplex traffic at the start of a big day. We have dinner with the Texas Cooks, catch up on family and life events, say good night and retire to the master bedroom that has been graciously given up for our comfort. Up decently early the next morning, shower and pack for the longest driving day of them all - destination Utah.
As we pack, my wife notices that, "Hey, what a coincidence, my sister-in-law has the very same hairbrush that I do." Later that night, "Hey, has anybody seen my hairbrush?" "What, the one that looks just like the one Susan has in her bathroom back in Wichita Falls?" It is an Ah-Ha moment. Maybe we did get up just a tad too early. Oh well, nothing a trip to Wal*Mart can't fix to replace the hairbrush left behind.
We see miles and miles of Texas. We drive pass the Cadillac Ranch west of Amarillo where half-a-dozen vintage Cadillacs are buried at a 30 degree angle, grill first, into the red earth of the Texas panhandle.
This is art - or so I am told.
Always a group of people stopped along the I-40 interstate to mosey on out to see and photograph the strange crop. There are mysteries on the plains, Stonehenge and Cadillac Ranch. It is a good thing to salt the mysterious and unexpected amidst the monotony. I applaud planting cadillacs with King Cotton.
Four Corners -- Aware of the subtle changing topography, we drop off the Llano Estacado (Staked Plain of the early Spanish Explorers) and into the rifted basins of New Mexico, identified by the transformed geology, where jet-black volcanic basalts are now appearing off the shoulder of the highway. We gratefully gain an hour as we reset the car clock to Mountain Time. It is also lunch time as we drive off I-40 and onto the by-passed main street of Tucumcari. The majority of the buildings are dust-blown, abandoned hulks of pre-Interstate commerce serving the traveling public, presumably heading west after the war. It is the old Route 66, with dilapidated motor hotels and diners and now failed businesses often with architecture rendered in a Western and Indian theme that was once so exotic and fascinating for the newly mobile US population in the 1950's and 60's. Grant says he is sad to see a town look like this, largely by-passed and left behind, and would be happy to have Tucumcari in our rear-view mirror. Sentiments obviously shared by many others. But, in honor of the faded glory of what we once thought the American West to be, we stop and buy lunch at a long established diner. I eat their chicken-fried steak, and they take my plastic dollars. I wish them well and hope they are still holding down the fort the next time my wagon train travels through.
We zip across the Rio Grande in Albuquerque, going further into the desert where Indian Nations have set up blazing beacons of flashing mammoth signals in gaudy colors, imploring the those with a weak wallet to stop in an try their luck at the "loosest slots on earth". The house always wins. The advice given to those early pioneers traveling through Apache country on the Santa Fe Trail still applies: Hang onto your scalp.
We cut off the interstate and head north toward the magnificent Ship Rock as the sun sits low on the horizon.
We catch some rain, part of the summer storm systems that have continually skirted around the high pressure system that has been sitting over Dallas all summer, making it a wet summer for everyone but Texas. It is right to see rain and lightning over the desert, though this is a camping night, which could make things interesting. We are now navigating across small, two-lane state highways, bobbing and weaving to get to our camp in southeastern Utah. I mention to Grant that this is the "Four Corners" region, the only place in the US where 4 state are contiguously joined, and that there is a marker where you can get down on all fours and be in Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado and Utah at the same instant. Grant asks, have you ever done that? I say, no - I am usually in a hurry to get somewhere and have never been to the exact four corners spot. Grant suggests (with a deserved dig at my philosophy); why don't we go there now? You know, "Enjoy the journey", right Dad? Touche. It is time for this kid to leave home, he knows too well how to get to me.
I might as well have been a third grader on the playground who had just been double-dogged dared. I had no choice but to ask my wife for the quickest route to the Four Corners Monument. I am crestfallen to see the rangers swinging the gate to the Four Corners Visitors Center to the locked position. As they lock the gate, the sign on the outside reads: Monument Closes at 8 PM. It was 8:00. I am proud of Grant for the impromptu prod to go and see something new and distinctive. I am sorry that it is true that "Timing is everything". If I'd only listened to my mother who always told me to "drive fast and take chances", then maybe we could have gotten to the Four Corners before they closed.
Somebody who got into 4 Corners before the gate was locked
With our headlights on, we circled back to the highway and drive toward the mountain tops covered with roiling dark clouds, intermittently lit like Chinese lanterns by flashes of lightning. The darkening sky spits, piddles and pours onto my windshield, but I roll down the side windows to deeply inhale the special smell of desert sage on a newly rain-wetted earth. This primal scent is guaranteed to unweary the bones, settle the mind and cleanse the lungs. An evening thunderstorm on the American Desert. Good Stuff.
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