| Submitted by: Mark R. LeeperUnited States |
| Submission Date: 15 February 2005 |
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Well, here I am starting another trip log. I just barely finished the last one about nine days ago. That was better than two weeks after I finished a six-day trip. Of course, I wrote something like 20,000 words. That's something like a 3300- word essay about each day. Well, my brother and my father are photographers. I am just not into photography that much. Taking a lot of pictures on a trip is a distraction. So I decided to write trip logs instead. That gave me something to do in the evenings on trips (which were usually empty) rather than during the days (which are usually full). Of course, as the years have gone by, I have started writing more and more.
I did not sleep very well last night. In fact, I have been awake since 3 AM. I spent the time cleaning up the mess I had made packing. At about 7:35 AM our friends picked us up and took us to the airport (thanks, Jo and Dale!). The gate is something like 77 degrees Fahrenheit by my thermometer. People are fanning themselves with tickets or fans.
Our first leg of the trip was uneventful. The breakfast was tiny: a small pastry and a few cubes of cantaloupe. I tried to sleep a little, but the kid behind me was at war with the back of my seat. In front of me there were two rows of children from the family everybody else on the block fears. Reminiscent of the current Teentalk Barbie saying 'Math class is hard,' one of the kids had a T-shirt that says 'I like school ... NOT.' The last word is in eight-inch pink letters.
We have a short layover in our flight in the St. Louis airport. The nickname of St. Louis is the 'Gateway to the West.' That is more or less how we intend to use it. Actually, it looks pretty Eastern to me. There was one guy that looked a little Western in a straw hat. Someone else had fancy boots. Then Evelyn is wearing a string tie, but in her case it is pure affectation. She is a dude.
I am trying to get in a Western mood by reading Pronzini and Greenberg's BEST OF THE WEST, an anthology of short stories that were made into Western films. For years I'd looked for John Cunningham's 'Tin Star,' which was the basis of HIGH NOON. The other big find was Dorothy Johnson's 'Man Who Shot Liberty Valence.' I read both stories several years ago when we got the book, but it seemed a good choice for this trip.
Waiting in the airport we talked to a black woman and her husband who were retired and now every two weeks fly someplace in the United States. Sounds pretty good to me. She also flew abroad but says she wouldn't go back to Paris and wouldn't go back to Rome. I asked her if she'd been to Asia. 'No desire to go there.' Actually, she says she does not like the fourteen-hour flights any more, so will be traveling only domestically. But as she puts it, 'The Brinks doesn't follow the hearse' ... so you better spend it while you're alive. We sat next to her for the best part of an hour and probably wouldn't have talked to her if she hadn't taken the first step. That would have been a pity, since she was likable and affable. Somehow I think we East-Coasters have a hard time talking to strangers. Oh, she also didn't like Albuquerque.
Another short leg by plane and we could see Albuquerque. I spent the time reading the many guidebooks, reading some film reviews I brought off the Net, reading 'The Tin Star.' It was fairly different from HIGH NOON. There was much less of the abandonment theme. The main character was more like Lon Chaney in the film--an old widower with crippled hands. His name was Doade.
My first impression of Albuquerque from the air was sort of like an oasis in the middle of an immense flat valley. The valley looked brown and desolate, stretching to hills at a great distance.
When things get ugly enough sometimes they come around the other end and are beautiful. There is something beautiful about a totally ugly dog. The land in the Great Southwest is like that. It is parched and withered and wind-blown. It is a land that has been so punished by the relentless sun and the rarity of water, it has come around to being lovely again. Go figure.
Well, we landed in Albuquerque and went to the Hertz counter to pick up our car. Now we had asked in advance to have a cassette player in the car. We've brought Tony Hillerman novels on cassette and Western film music (among other things). Evelyn asked if our car would have a cassette player. Not at the price we were paying. We will have to get a larger car at $5 more a day. At $23 days, that's $115. No way. If need be we will stop at an electronics store and get a battery-powered job and a bunch of batteries. That will cost a lot less and when the trip is over we'd still have the battery-powered job and perhaps some of the batteries.
Evelyn saw a sign that said, 'If you are going to the El Paso/Las Cruces area, ask us for special information.' Evelyn asked for the special information. The woman did not seem happy. The special information must be very special indeed if they are unhappy to give it out. The special information is that Hertz rents mostly Fords. El Paso is a border town. Lots of cars get stolen. Mostly Fords. The local car thieves specialize in Fords. Apparently they heard someplace that at Ford Quality is Job 1. Or perhaps Ford just has cheesy security systems. Anyway, since we were going to El Paso, they had to give us a different car. It turned out to be a Mazda. Nice car. It has a cassette player and ten miles on the odometer. Thanks, Ford Motor Company.
So we hit the road. Our first city was to be Socorro. (We are saving Albuquerque for the end since there is currently a hot air balloon festival. No way could we get a room.)
So we hit the road and promptly fell in love with the area. From the road it is just beautiful. We are nearly a mile above sea level and that makes the air clear. You see flat terrain and mountains in the distance. The near mountains are brown; the distant ones are a pastel blue. More distant mountains have faded to a sky blue. You see brightly colored weeds at the side of the road--some almost orange or rust in color. Other wildflowers are lavender. The roads are wide and straight, and speed limits are 65 miles per hour.
In 1598 Spaniards from Mexico came north to settle. They had to cross an expanse of ninety miles of waterless desert. The Indians of southern New Mexico were astounded to see the white men come from the desert. They gave the men food and drink. The Spanish named the area Socorro--meaning 'help.' It wasn't long before it was the Soanish running the area they called Nuevo Mexico. Pueblo Indians were converted to Catholicism. Their religious leaders were often hanged. Their holy places were destroyed. They were told their religion was devil worship. When the Pueblo Indians had enough, they decided to revolt. Each Pueblo tribe was given a string with knots. Each tribe untied a knot a day. When there were no more knots to untie it was the day to attack the Spanish. The Spanish were thrown out. That was in 1680 and known as the Pueblo Revolt. For 135 years southern New Mexico remained under Pueblo Indian control. It was 're-settled' in 1815 by the United States.
Okay, gang. Who can identify the following jungle?
Elfego was wise,
And Elfego was strong,
Elfego Baca, who made right from wrong.
And the legend was told,
Like el gato the cat,
Nine lives had Elfego Baca.
Give up? Walt Disney's television program used to be free-form-- whatever he wanted to put on he would. He tried shows (that might have been essentially television pilots) with heroes like Texas John Slaughter (Tom Tryon), Francis Marion--The Swamp Fox (Leslie Nielson), and Dr. Syn (Patrick McGoohan). The one that really did spawn a series was Zorro, Guy Williams I think. At least Williams played in the series. I don't remember seeing the pilot but a Walt Disney preview show referred to it, saying it would be a series. Nearly forgotten is Elfego Baca (Robert Loggia).
Elfego was plenty real enough and is something of a hero in Socorro County. I haven't found the full legend, but he supposedly single-handedly held off eighty Texas cowboys. Other people paint him in less than glowing terms.
We got to Socorro and checked into our motel, then rushed out to take a walking tour of Socorro. It is mentioned in some of the books. The tour is only of low-grade interest. From the square you can get a free brochure that describes where to go, also you can get a description in a local newspaperette that is given out free at motels and restaurants.
The problem is that the buildings range from lukewarm to cool interest value. There are about three or four left over from Wooly West days. Many are early 20th Century buildings representing things like the only two-story buildings in town. We did hit the Dana Bookstore, owned by a Gladys Dana, a sweet woman to whom we talked for quite a while. We showed her a reference to her bookstore in a travel guide she had not known about. She said we'd made her day. We also bought a very comprehensive travel guide of New Mexico from her, by Chilton et al. Pricey, but very complete. It may be the best travel guide I have ever seen for any place. The Mexican (they call it Spanish here) restaurant we wanted was closed. She reluctantly told us about El Sombrero. I am not sure why she was reluctant. She said the food was good, however.
We stopped at a grocery to pick up snacks for the car. (A Mazda gets hungry.) Vending machines are fairly cheap at the grocery: thirty-five cents for cans of Coke and Pepsi, twenty-five cents for the store's own brand.
That done, we went to El Sombrero for dinner and liked it. The night was clear and there was a big full moon. We couldn't have ordered things better. Back at the room it was reading and writing with THE PRINCESS BRIDE on HBO in the background.
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We were up early and checked out of the hotel by 6:30 AM. Breakfast at a little cafe. I had Huevos Rancheros; Evelyn tried the biscuits and gravy, which she knew I was fond of and wanted to try. First stop today was at the VLA (Very Large Array), currently the most powerful radio telescope in the world. It is actually twenty-seven identical dish antennas and a Y-shaped railtrack system to allow moving them around. Moving them together or spreading them out has the effect of zooming in or getting a wide-angle view. Each of the disk assemblies weighs 235 tons with the dish alone weighing 100 tons and being some 82 feet in diameter. Early in the film 2010 they give you a close-up look at one of the telescopes. The telescope is so powerful they claim it is fail-safe. Aim it anywhere and you will learn a fair amount that was previously unknown. The tour is about ninety minutes and is self-guided. It starts with a show of computer graphics from NASA about Voyager's visit to Neptune. Almost no words but pleasant to watch. The VLA was used for telemetry in conjunction with the mission. Then there is a much more informative slide show for twenty-five minutes or so. Then there are more exhibits inside and a walking tour that takes you within twenty feet of one of the big telescopes. The last thing you see is a transporter. It is a big tractor device that can go ten miles per hour empty, five carrying a radio telescope.
After the VLA it was back out on the roads. Because we are high up (about 7000 feet at the VLA), it is tough to guess distances. |
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