• The green chile cheeseburger and onion rings at the Owl Bar & Cafe in San Antonio, NM – This is the place where the guys from Los Alamos would hang out when they weren’t getting the first A-bomb ready for testing at Trinity Flats. It’s quite a show inside. As for me, I didn’t know where to pay, the waitress said she could take the check, I said “Bueno,” and she thought I meant I didn’t want change and was giving her a really big tip. Turns out I did. Heh. No wonder she was so nice.
• Jesus Soto’s “Chile Fanatic” & Gift Shop in Hatch, NM – Ah, the aroma…
Amazing vibes
The whole family was under an awning, making ristras. The 14-year-old kid who waited on me was the happiest, most polite human being I’ve met in years, maybe ever. We didn’t want to leave. Some kind of spiritual energy nexus thing going on for sure.
• Mary K. – Seeing my “baby sister” again and being proud of what she’s done for herself.
• The Epic Cafe on 4th Avenue in Tucson – Thank God! Tattoos and body piercings, university weirdos, and the rubber chicken. What a refuge. The chicken? Oh. Well, I needed to go to the restroom and found I needed a key. I asked the cashier where it was, and she said, “the key is on the chicken.” I pretended I was hip and ambled back toward the door, scanning the walls for any sign of a bird. No luck. I figured they’d all be on to me, but just then a fellow came out of the restroom carrying a rubber chicken with a key attached. Not just any rubber chicken, mind you, but one with a purple polka dot bikini.
• The canyon road from Sedona to Flagstaff – Sorry, too lazy to walk to an atlas. (Look it up, there’s only one.) Despite the fact that you have to go to Sedona first, this is one cool and curvy highway. I could hardly believe the deciduous forest. Way to go, God.
• El Norte – After seeing a heap of Southwestern vistas to compare and contrast with northern New Mexico, it was like coming into heaven to be back. Heck, these mountains are even green. Well, mostly. It’s not hot here, either.
• The love of my life – Now that I’m relaxed enough to pay attention, going anywhere with this woman is a glorious delight. Little did I know when I was just a young idiot that such rare pleasures existed. I really feel I could die right now and know I had it all. There’s not a man on earth who wouldn’t envy the depth of my contentment, and it’s growing every day. Damn straight.
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{ 13 comments… read them below or add one }
ROAD TRIP!!! Sounds like it was a good one too! That Dodge sounds like the old Timex commercials! Especially if that canyon road is the one I’m thinking of. Round and round like a corkscrew? I did it on the down-trip, going up musta been even wilder!
John,
The canyon road is Highway 89A. Looks like you passed through right under my nose. An interesting thought, that — the Farrs passing through, headed East. Meanwhile, here I was waiting for the second installment from Tucson, and wondering if you’d go back via highway 60/77 through the Salt River Canyon to Holbrook. (You should someday if you haven’t already. The gorge is spectacular, and the tubing is excellent, too.)
Anyway, once you get up above 3,000 ft. most of what you’re seeing is haze, not smog — we get a lot of it this time of year. The smog, what there is of it, tends to blow over from California. When I was last at the Grand Canyon, I overheard a Park Service guide telling some folks from Germany that the visibility in the canyon has gotten steadily worse over the years because of it — they’ve got statistics, etc. I remember it when it was clear as crystal, even in the summer.
Haze?
Well, maybe. But aren’t we talking about the same thing? That stuff I saw in the air over Phoenix didn’t blow in from California. Looked just like what you see over Baltimore, etc. Seriously, what is this “haze” of which you speak? Sure isn’t humidity, and why don’t we have that here in NM? I did see the coal-fired power plants in the desert, too. The plume from the stacks was obvious and incriminating.
We’ve been on that other road, too. Great drive. And we did spend the night in Holbrook this time anyway, God help us. There was no hot water at the Best Western, there was lipstick on the sheets, the bathtub drain was clogged, and the restaurant was full of smokers. I’ve never been so glad to hightail it to McDonald’s and buy a smokeless quarter-pounder from a beautiful Indian girl.
Sorry we missed you, though. And make no mistake about it, Arizona is a beautiful state.
Mike, I used to own a Nissan 240SX SE. Had almost 300,000 miles on it when I let it go, and it was still running strong. Most of those miles were added on during long road trips. I need road trips like most people need air.
John,
I’m not talking about the Phoenix basin. I’m talking about the Verde Valley. It actually is haze, mixed with smoke from various fires around at times. The desert power plants are mostly to the north and east of us, up towards Page. Those in the Mojave are largely south of us.
But what IS “haze”???
Merriam-Webster says: haze:a fine dust, smoke, or light vapor causing lack of transparency of the air. Sounds like pollution to me. Unless we’re talkin’ “Purple Haze”, then we can take that road trip without the car.
Argh! It’s dusty and windy here, and this time of year, the humidity from the river, etc. But really, I give up. You wanna think this is LA or Phoenix, it’s fine with me.
Bill, I’m not trying to be difficult. It just comes naturally today.
• The canyon road from Sedona to Flagstaff
It’s even more fun to drive down it the other way! Wheee!!
I would love to do that with the right car. Something with a slick gearbox and a great exhaust sound.
We didn’t stop in Sedona, BTW. Too damn controlling for my tastes, though the local High Commissioner for Color Warping does a good job on some of the businesses. (May be nicer off the main road.) Very powerful landscape, doesn’t get much stronger than that.
Is the “haze” over Tucson way worse than the L.A. crap?
Now there is a great email handle…are you actually based in Magdalena???
I’ve never been to L.A., but Tucson smog isn’t nearly as bad as that over Phoenix.