What have I seen so far?
Well, I’m in Tucson, AZ, taking a little breather from driving and seeing, while I get the car serviced.
I’ve been a long way. My first stop was in Grove City, OH. That was uneventful. On the way, I got to drive along the Pennsylvania Turnpike. That’s a fun road. Just before I merged onto the PA TPK, I was passed by a car that had a bumper sticker that said “Paddle faster. I hear banjo music.” That was priceless.
In Indiana, I saw billboards for an RV dealership owned (or founded) by a guy named Tom Raper. Um… “raper”… Am I the only one who… uh… I mean… You’ve head of Dick Trickle. There’s an unfortunate fella. If you’ve got a last name like Raper or Trickle or… Dong… or Scheissekopf… Please, before you have kids, change it to something less… horrifying.
Indiana also has lots of Christian radio stations. Yay. …and farm reports. Whee. So do Oklahoma and Texas.
In Illinios, there’s a town called Effingham. You think I’m joking? I’m not. Look at my face. This is my serious face. Effingham, it turns out, has a giant cross of its own. I don’t know when that one went up… but I don’t remember seeing it when I blew through in 2002. Still… it’s horrifying.
Let’s see… After Effingham, there was St. Louis, MO… which… went by quickly. Then it was off to Tulsa, OK… Which … well… There’s not a whole lot I can say about Tulsa, other than … it’s… in Tulsa. On the way to Tulsa, I had an opportunity to stop at the “world’s largest McDonald’s” . How exciting is THAT?!
The plan was to proceed to Socorro, NM fro Tulsa, but I just ran out of steam in Albuquerque. I spent the night there, then continued on to Socorro in the morning. I suppose if I hadn’t dawdled to long at the giant ross in Groom, TX, I coulda made it to Socorro in one go… but… The cross was so scary, I couldn’t pull myself away. I don’t mean that in a good away. From Amarillo, TX to Albuquerque, there’s just about nothing. Also nice are the long stretches of I-40 in New Mexico, where they’re doing construction… so there’s no lines in the road, no lights, no reflectors… That’s just spiffy in the middle of the night. Oh, and the speedlimit drops from 75 to 55 for miles at a time… not that anyone’s actually doing any work there at ten PM… they’re not… Still the speed limit is 55. Thanks. and what is a “safety corridor”, anyway?!
Anyhow, the road to Socorro (I-25) was pretty straight and uneventful… except for the rest stop about 15 miles outside socorro, where I observed a big explosion to the south, in the mountains. Huh.
Socorro, NM is little more than a wide patch in the road. There are plenty of friendly people, but unless you’re there to drink, or using it as a waypoint to visit the VLA or Trinity, there ain’t much going on.
Saw the VLA last Friday. That was pretty cool. Saw Trinity the next day. That was neat. After that, Socorro was burned out for me. I moved on to Farmington, NM. Farmington is a more buzzing metropolis, compared to Socorro… but still not huge. I stayed in Farmington Sunday, Monday and Tuesday. Monday was Chaco day. Chaco is amazing… see my blog post on visiting Chaco for some caveats.
Wednesday, I was off to lovely Winslow, AZ and Meteor Crater. Meteor crater is a hell of a thing. Winslow is almost a ghost town. Socorro, with its Taco Bell has more culture and sophistication going on than Winslow. Still, I managed to stand on a corner, which was one of my goals for the trip. No girl (my lord) in a flatbed Ford slowed down to take a look at me… which is probably for the best.
Thursday (yesterday), I left Winslow for Tucson, AZ. Spent the night and had the car serviced. I’ll be doing laundry… How’s that for a vacation?!