Santa Rosa, New Mexico

(This is where we are.  Image from here.)

We made it.  516 miles.  Three dogs & me in a tiny Prius.  Three cats & the wife in a rented minivan. (A Chrysler Pacifica if you really want to know.)  The wife was happy because it had Sirius radio, & she loves the First Wave channel.  I am exhausted.

Last night I couldn't get to sleep, which is par for the course.  I get anxious before trips - my first trip by car to this part of the world, I spent the night until I collapsed from exhaustion around 3am thumbing through a Mapsco deciding the best route.  (This was in 1995, in the days before GPS.)  Then, as this morning, I woke at six.  It's 9pm New Mexico time, & I am running on fumes.  Which is great!  I'll sleep like the dead tonight.

We planned to leave at eight but it took a little longer to get the house cleaned & our shit packed - kudos to the wife for putting four & half times as much as realistically possible into the minivan - & so far the only thing we left behind was Magda's lunch.

It was sad to let the house go.  It's a lovely place, & I know even though they really can't miss it, the dogs (especially Pauline) are going to miss the beautiful yard.  I think my anxiousness about last night was equal parts going from the house & going to Portland.  The wife put so much work & so much of herself into the house & it was the most comfortable place I've ever lived.  Even after all our belongings were taken away on Thursday, I would find myself going to this room or that as I had been doing for two or more years, out of habit, surprised that my stuff wasn't there anymore.

But I love moving, I love going to new cities, I am very excited about getting to know Portland.  It's not that I have wanderlust per se, I just wish I could relocate every two or three years & spend time in a new place.

The dogs - who doubtless thought we were just going to the park - were easily cajoled into the car.  The cats, however, were freaked out - we put them in an empty room while we packed up & it unnerved Bolan, who was quite frantic.  Bronte & Boone hid in an empty closet, & they were easily grabbed & put into carriers.  Bronte & Bolan shared a large one, Boone had to be by himself in a regular-sized one.  The wife tells me that Bolan complained occasionally throughout the drive, & when we stopped & I checked on them, Bolan was meowing to get out while Boone & Bronte stayed in the back of the carriers.  I wish I could have trained them to be walked like dogs!

We hit the road after 9, I got to hear a bit of my friends Pippin & Carole begging for money on the show I used to do, the Tuesday Morning Blend.  They were much, much better at it than I was, & I was glad they were doing it & not me.  The route began on I-30 till it became I-20 & wound its way through Weatherford, past Mineral Wells, through Abilene, & made a right onto 84 at Sweetwater.  Thanks to the magic of cell phones, the wife & I talked a great deal of the drive, although I did listen to some new records, & a collection of Momus tunes I made so I could sing along.  I didn't listen to any podcasts or books on tape, though I brought those, too - I just really love to listen to music when I drive.

We made a promise to stop every hour or so, for everyone but the cats to go pee, & we pretty much kept the schedule.  We stopped outside Abilene to eat lunch - we brought a lot of food, since we ate out with friends pretty much the entire last week we were in Fort Worth (though, as I've said, the lunch Magda prepared for herself last night was left, we later realized, by our unused fireplace).  While I was eating my sandwich, I met a fellow at a gas station who had a pro-beagle bumper sticker & I also met his beautiful sixteen-year-old beagle named Buster.  The guy was so obviously pro-beagle that Winston, who is famously stingy with his love, gave him a lick when the fellow put his face close to Winston's.

The route took us around, & not through, Lubbock - which seems to have more wind turbines than oil derricks these days, hooray! but the same amount of stockyards, so boo!  - & we had to improvise to find a gas station, which we did, in a town called Littlefield, at a service station on Waylon Jennings Road.  Would you believe I was listening to Townes Van Zandt when we drove up?  I was, but you don't have to believe it.  It began to rain as we left, & the very gregarious cashier told us bad weather was coming.  How did she know? I asked.  She said, "I don't watch TV!  It's just what people tell me!"

She's very good, it turns out.  We later discovered we just missed a storm which included a tornado watch.  We had escaped over the border to New Mexico by then.

The highway was smaller, & we had to drop from 75 mph to 35 mph in a matter of fractions of a mile from time-to-time.  That happens in Texas, too, of course, & also there are generally cops there to give tickets to the unwary.  About an hour from Santa Rosa - in a town called Fort Sumner - we met a young woman who was moving from Washington State - the wife noticed her license plates - to Austin (we asked).  We talked about the Austin that we knew & she admitted that she was moving reluctantly - her husband recently got a job there.  Magda thought I might sympathize but nope!  There isn't a lot of reluctance with this move.

Highway 84 took us to Santa Rosa & I noticed we were in a new time zone.  It is earlier than it once was.  We sneaked the cats into the hotel room - luckily our room was near the back door - hey, we paid extra for three dogs! - & they were pretty unhappy.  It's been a few hours & they've finally come out to eat. They still don't know what to make about the noise in the hallway, but I think they'll be fine - although I am not entirely sure they won't hide when it's time to go.

The hotel is on what used to be Route 66, so we walked the dogs a mile or so down the road & back & I took a lot of pictures of cool signs & abandoned places, two of my favorite things.  I'll post the ones I like best at some point - to my personal Facebook page & to the show's Tumblr blog - but knowing how long it takes me to get through my pictures, I'll be settling into regular life in Portland by the time they make their appearances.  Hey!  I take a lot of dumb pictures!  I go through them chronologically!  They remind me how much I forget things!

For dinner, we ate leftover enchiladas I made in Lexington*.  There are not a lot of vegan choices in Santa Rosa.  Let me rephrase that.  There are hardly any vegan choices in Santa Rosa.  Might I try again.  I would be surprised if there were vegan choices in Santa Rosa.  The enchiladas were good.  If I don't say so myself.  Though I just did.

It's earlier than I feel, but I am exhausted.  The wife has already fallen asleep.  I had last driven in this part of the world maybe twenty-five years ago, & for some reason back then I usually drove around here at night.  But the desert is lovely in its way & I've missed it.  Like Jonathan Richman says, "When I'm in the desert, I wanna see the desert some more."

Luckily we're driving up into Utah tomorrow!

*  (I wrote this sentence at the end of a very long day; of course I meant Fort Worth)