Outtakes, Leg 1

Lovely, lovely Houston

Houston, Texas
Where I learned about the most mean spirited toll roads ever, offering no options but to exit into the unknown...and you might just get a ticket in the mail (which I did not, thank goodness). This is also the last place toll roads were included in my map searches. Turns out you can travel 9,000 miles without hitting a toll road at all.

Rootin Tootin Dallas Ft. Worth

Houston, Texas AirBNB
My most gruesome injury of the trip, a Florida shaped bruise up my leg, from splatting on the floor, trying to find the Host to let me out so I could visit my libraries. There are few things I can do as well as I did as a young teen, but it seems I can still fall like a massive, wet, green frog, much like I did at our first dress rehearsal of Alice in Wonderland when I tried to sprint across the stage in flippers. I was 14, a Frog Footman, and furiously humiliated. It seems the muscle memory is the same, as I blushed madly all these decades later even though there was no one there to witness my clumsy shame.

Chic and shiny Austin

Big Bend

Pretty, pretty Roswell

Bottomless Lakes Campground
When I drove up to the campsite host trailers, no one was at the On Duty station, so I rolled to the second, where an older man was sunning right by his Off Duty sign. He looked at me and mouthed something awfully not nice, but was willing to help after he realized the other host was MIA. It's funny that anyone would think the average person couldn't lipread MOTHERFUCKER. But I can.

Magical New Mexico

Magdalena, New Mexico (AirBNB)
When I shopped for supplies at the Albuquerque Wal-Mart, I was so overexcited by the idea of having a kitchen and endless, luxurious time, that I bought a week's worth of food when I really only needed a few days. Like, what did I think I was going to do with an entire box of Frosted Flakes?

Canyons de Chelly, Forests so petrified, doggy butts

Grand Canyon, Meteor Crater, Flagstaffian Library Lodge

Grand Canyon Campsite
I blame the children, always. But in this case, it is definitely their fault since they distracted me. The family that came in the night before I had to leave were up bright and early and the kids were climbing the trees around their campsite (and mine) as I busied myself with breaking down the tent and packing up. We started talking about climbing trees, visiting the canyon, and where they were from and planned to visit on the way back, and I totally forgot I put my flashlight, pill case, and ax on top of my car...until I took the first hard turn and all but the ax (sturdy, heavy thing) went flying off the roof and smashed to the pavement. The flashlight survived. The pill case did not. I spent the rest of the trip taking medicine from individual pill bottles like an animal.
Flagstaff, Arizona
Home of Assholes on Bikes Who Do Not Look Where They are Going and Giant Falcons or Perhaps Pterodactyls Who Crap on Your Car in the Night. Not really an "outtake" as much as a state of existence. A pretty but perilous place.

Cali 1

Arizona/California Border
I cannot explain why, when asked if I had fruit in the car, I felt compelled to tell the truth (yes), but then lied (saying I had one apple when I had two) and then lied even further (when he said, oh from a Flagstaff hotel probably and I said yes even though it was from an Albuquerque Wal-Mart). As though I'd been caught with live parrots tucked in my bra?

Cali 2

Post Flagstaff
The Cooler of Shame and Failure. I tried keeping up with the ice, but it wasn't enough of a priority and also makes that one jar of grape jelly go from a somewhat reasonable price to the most deluxe, gold flaked tumbler of Smuckers to ever be acquired at auction. It works best if you are camping a lot and know you are going to go through your goods in a matter of days, but it is not a long term option. I ended up trashing more than I'd care to remember and, as you can imagine, any kind of waste during these post-employment months is irritating and regrettable. I do admit that 90% of the problem is me!

Toothy Utah

All States, Including Mental
Car Sleeping--it can be done! And quite peacefully and effectively. But it took me awhile to build up the nerve to do it at all and I did opt out a few times when I planned to sleep in the car and either chickened out or thought it would be too cold. Considering the savings, I would obviously far prefer car sleeping over everything else. I am sure there are other sub-outtakes in this category, all likely involving nearly falling into toilets at 3 a.m., sleep blurry and freezing, or trying to guesstimate how many people saw me with my mouth agape and nose pressed against the back window, but we'll have to leave that to our imagination.

Rocky Mountain HIIIIIIIGH, Colorado. I really did think I'd see people smoking pot out in public but no dice, man.

Roswell Public Library, Roswell, New Mexico

If you are going to have one single library in your town, you could only hope to have one as nice as the Roswell Public Library. During my time spent in the area, this was by far the very best experience I had. The library is clean, quiet, well equipped, and pretty.

 The exterior alone is worth a pause. The building's design is sleek and striking, with the names of famous authors bordering the the perimeter of the of the exterior wall. There is a beautiful "Tree of Knowledge" sculpture out front where the titles of famous works (as well as quotes) are etched into the trunk.

Once you enter the library, the lobby features a wall of Roswell's history--note the apple orchards, which are still there and quite striking in the midst of a desert landscape. This is also where the water fountains, bathrooms, and doorways to the meeting rooms are located, as well as a comfortable seating area for people to lounge while waiting for their ride, etc.

As you walk in the main doors, CDs are hanging at each side of the doorway in a seeming homage to 1996...this and some of the decorative decisions made on the interior were strange aesthetic misfires that erroneously date the building to somewhere in the 90s (the bright "squiggle" art on the stacks drags it back further to the 80s). I only mention it because it didn't jive with the exterior...these were minor things I happened to notice that made no difference to the overall value of the experience.

The value of this library is astronomical...fittingly, a place where our Little Green Friends might feel right at home--studying for finals or plotting our doom--under the purple ceilings, bright lights, and incredibly (shockingly) comfortable study chairs. I loved this library so much. It was comfortable, there were plugs in the floor for my computer, and the wifi worked like a charm.

Roswell, New Mexico to Magdalena, New Mexico (side stop in Albuquerque) - 303 miles

While the drive from Big Bend to Bottomless Lakes was grim in one way, the drive from Roswell to Albuquerque was challenging in a different way: Mind bending sameness. I’ve heard people complain about Kansas this way, and I am eager to make the comparison when I drive from Colorado, through Dodge City, to home. I am accustomed to the drive from Wichita to Lawrence and Kansas City, which features the serenely beautiful Flint Hills, but I’ve heard Western Kansas is a real drag. The only time I recall driving through it was when storms were blowing through, so the sky was bruised and churning, and that dark sky against bright wheat fields? Not boring, not by a longshot. We huddled in a rest stop where the canned radio broadcast warned of torrential rains and tornadoes. Pretty sure that Roswell to Albuquerque run will beat Western Kansas on the boreometer by a mile.

Before leaving Bottomless Lakes, I spent some time in Roswell. The first day I drove into town, I was fleeing the heat of the camp and just wished to cruise around in the air-conditioning and maybe do some recon at the one and only public library. It was so damn hot (mid 90s) and no matter how much I turned up the AC the heat was still getting to me. So, that put me in a mood and my stomach had turned—to be fair, this probably clouded my opinion of Roswell a bit.

There is a visible disparity, more jarring than usual because the town is so very small, between the wealth and the poverty. It is clearly a tourist town, with a museum dedicated to its crowning achievement in extraterrestrial contact(s), and an unbelievable number of hotels and restaurants, many with kitschy green aliens standing at the door to greet you. Not everywhere, mind you, and I got the distinct impression that there was a part of Roswell that thrived on the notoriety, and there was a larger part of Roswell that survived on it, but was unapologetically “sick of this shit.”

In all the touristy stuff I saw, none seemed terribly compelling, though I do admit I never went into the museum or any of the gift shops. It’s difficult to express my feelings about the place. Everyone has been to at least one tourist destination in their lives…for some reason, despite all the places I’ve been, the one I am thinking of now is Ocean City, Maryland. Tacky tacky tourist trappy. But it made sense—everything seemed to belong there, as though if you took away the boardwalk and all its garish delights, smells, and sounds, you’d rip the soul out of the place. It wasn’t really my scene, per se, but I still enjoyed the authenticity of it. It was real, even in its fakeness and money grubbiness, it felt like it was meant to be exactly this way.

The only other time I’ve felt this same kind of disconnect with a tourist destination is Orlando. Now, Roswell is not the same level of sad, dilapidated, terminally sticky “pit” as Orlando—never think that—but both places had that absence of soul. I will now be set on fire by the peoples of these fine cities, I know it, but that was the impression I got. There was nothing about Roswell that made me want to stay, not even the second day when the weather was much better and I wasn’t feeling so punkish. Great breakfast at the IHop, I will say that—lots of hustle from the whole team and the waffle was A-OK (and certainly better than the sad, limp Waffle House waffles).

[Insert long drive here where I stared to long into the abyss and it stared right back at me and said, you know what, I’m good.]

 I forgot that I loved Albuquerque. I visited this city back when I was 7 or 8 when my grandparents took me on a roadtrip through the Southwest (a much shorter version of this very trip, in fact). We went to visit my Aunt Elsie and her brood—Aunt Elsie was my grandmother’s sister-in-law and was what I considered a genuine lady. Very well mannered, always dressed impeccably, hair never messy. Her house was equally perfect and she had a feeder for hummingbirds which I found whimsical and magical. Her family was warm, welcoming, and impossibly attractive and our stay with them was the best part of the trip. I’d been having a hard time in that period of my life, and the first part of the trip had been a struggle for me, so Albuquerque is where I started feeling like myself again, laughing and enjoying life. It’s funny, I hadn’t really thought of it until now, but it was a turning point for me. It probably made a bigger difference in my life than I’d ever considered.

Sandia Foothills

Albuquerque is an adobe loving mecca of Southwestern aesthetic-worship and, God Love 'Em, even the damn Starbucks is adobe. It’s a beautiful city nestled in the cradle of the Sandia mountain range. I drove all over the place checking out as much as I could and seriously loved every last bit of it.

I had lunch at Casa Taco, where the taco shells are somehow both soft and crunchy—a new taste delight—and the whole taco experience was d-freakin-vine. 5 out of 5 star tacos. I also visited a local Wal Mart for Magdalena supplies and found it to be exactly like any other Wal Mart ever, the common linkage of American culture, I guess?

I hadn’t planned to stop in Albuquerque, but I had to pick up prescriptions and CVS, employing some sort of witchery, was able to transfer my prescriptions there. It was a perfect preamble to my time at Magdalena, which I will document, though it will be a brief post of mostly pictures and fawning. I am so glad I got to spend a little time in ABQ and remember some things I’d almost lost.

Bottomless Lakes State Park

My favorite horror movie is The Descent (2005). If you haven't seen it, see it. Make sure it's past sundown and all the lights are out. And watch it alone.

You'll be fine.

[Do NOT watch the trailer. I would have linked it, but as with all trailers these days, it tells way too much. Why spoil it for yourself? If you are a horror fan, it's better to just experience the movie fresh. And if you are decidedly not a horror fan, please don't watch this movie, ever.]

Big Hill next to my campsite.

I've always been afraid of depths--the more you learn about the ocean, the more you start involuntarily kicking and run into a wall. The Descent is about lunatics who think it's a great idea to go spelunking. Spelunking, if you are not familiar with it, is the act of deliberately submerging oneself into caverns under the earth. Caverns that turn into hollows that turn into tight tunnels that may or may not suddenly collapse on you. The Descent is a movie made specifically for the likes of people like me. No thank you, depths, that's a hard pass, caverns, truck off and fly, tiny tunnels of terror. 

So when I first started learning about sinkholes, you can imagine how my mind processed that information. A hole. That just opens up. Under you. SIGN ME UP. Drag Me Down. To Hell. Considering the chaos of the universe, with ice comets, gas planets, and no air, such tomfoolery as sinkholes sounds tame and we should all consider ourselves lucky and get over it. But still, how could this be allowed to happen?

But happen it does! One opened up just down the block from my apartment in Brooklyn some years back and it took months for them to fix it. There was no warning. One day there was a tree, the next day there was no tree. And there was a hole. A hole that did not look all that impressive, really, and nothing like the sinkholes you've seen in other places, but apparently this thing went super deep and it took and incredible amount of work to shore everything up, stop the water flow that caused it in the first place, and fill in what started as a "tiny" hole (that eventually filled the street and went 70 feet deep). 

Other campers and sites. 

As they repaired the sinkhole, I would worry about it, but figured since I was on the 6th floor I'd probably be okay unless a sinkhole developed under a corner or half of the building and it just tipped over and went smack into the street and other buildings...and in that case I probably wouldn't be worrying about anything anymore. I believe earthquakes cause the same kind of anxiety in people because buildings can and do collapse. We've all seen the stories of people being pulled alive out of the rubble days after an event. 

My fear isn't the dying part. It's the waiting to die part. When I watched The Descent the first time, there was a scene that played directly to my fears. It grabbed that nerve like a guitar string and twanged it until it snapped. The idea of being trapped in a close space with no hope of escape or survival, and just waiting to die...for God knows how long? It's a common horror theme--people being buried alive, bricked in behind walls. All scary stuff, but there's something about terra firma suddenly going terra liquidus that just spooks the hell out of me. Like, drop kick me out of a plane, bungee me off of the Royal Gorge, make me feed hotwings to a gator. Anything but being submerged under the earth. 

So, the Bottomless Lakes are sinkholes! Probably formed thousands of years ago and totally stable and safe. But don't think that wasn't part of the charm of visiting this place and setting up camp right next to one, Lea Lake. It's a dare thing, I'll turn my back on you thing, a double guns into the sun thing. The worst part of Bottomless Lakes wasn't the sinkhole specter, it was the damn insects. They were ever present during the day, but became a true menace as the sun started to set, and even though I covered myself in insect repellent, some of them still managed to get to me. Gnats, mosquitoes, horseflies, regular flies, dragonflies--it was a mess. 

In the tent.

 It was only in the dark of night, with my tent zipped up, snugged into the sleeping bag, all lanterns off and stowed away, that I started thinking about those lakes...and sinkholes...and unpredictability. I imagined a giant cavern below the lakes, with only a thin layer of soil separating the lake and the cavern, worn thinner over thousands of years of erosion...until finally. What kind of sound would that make, I wonder? FOOMP? Or perhaps a horrible sucking noise? I could see myself asleep in my tent, on my air mattress set firmly on the hard ground, then weightless and falling hundreds of feet-

Well, I locked that shit up right there. My therapist says I am a catastrophic thinker. This is no lie. Whenever I start down that path, I visualize a stop sign and realign my perspective to reality. And it worked.

The lakes are beautiful and roundular, and setting up camp was much easier this time around. The wind was calmer, as well, so I was finally able to break out my Coleman butane stove and make coffee which took forever but who cares because I DID IT I MADE THE COFFEE. I will likely make the coffee again when I am at Grand Canyon or Joshua Tree, but it was still something I was way too overproud about because I've never worked a whole gas stove contraption by myself (gas grills, with help, always--I can turn them on but the tanks make me nervous).

Lea Lake

The camp itself was very bare, not like Big Bend, but the bathrooms were a huge improvement, with more stalls and free showers that were set up perfectly so you wouldn't get your stuff wet and felt safe while you were in there. It was a very chill camping experience--I spent most of the time reading. I think I mentioned before that I kept about 5 books? One of them is called Fools Crow by James Welch. I kind of wish I'd saved it for the second leg of my trip when I will be in Montana near the area where the book is set. It was funny, however, that on the second day in Bottomless Lakes, a smell came over the campground--a not entirely grotesque smell if you're a horticulturist or even just an amateur, and certainly nothing special if you work with large animals, especially in the equine/bovine arena. It was dung, I thought maybe fertilizer, or perhaps just the breeze had changed and we were now downwind of a farm or ranch. (I hoped it wasn't some sort of septic tank situation, but it turned out the smell was all over Roswell the next day, too, so I'm betting on a large herd of animals nearby but unseen). Since there is a lot of buffalo hunting, hide skinning, and horse stealing (and riding) in the book, the odor added to the authenticity of the experience. Weird, I know, but true.

Being near Roswell, I had my tinfoil hat at the ready and watched the skies for the inevitable alien driveby. You can tell me it didn't happen, but IT DID IT DID. I can see how people think aliens landed here and continue to land here. I have never seen more bizarre cloud structures in all my life. Better yet, these cloud structures refuse to be photographed accurately, so even though you may see a baby xenomorph as plain as day in one...

 ...it just looks blobular when you try to capture it. CONSPIRACY? I think so. Or how about when I was talking to my mom and saw some perfectly shaped saucers and had to stop to take a picture but later you could not see them? Do you see any saucers?

They are, in fact, there. SEE.

It's the cloaking device. They don't want you to see them. But they are there. I also saw freaky tendril clouds that reminded me of Cthulhu (our Pasta, who art in Colander...) -- honestly, if you are a person who truly "wants to believe," New Mexico is the place to kickstart your extraterrestrial fantasies. I, for one, don't need to "believe" or have "faith." I know. The universe is for all intents and purposes infinite, therefore intelligent life on other planets exists. This isn't even a difficult question. Math people can tell you the odds. And don't even start with that, waaahhh then why haven't they visited us waaahh. Watch news programming for 30 minutes and ask me that again. You will get what you richly deserve, inhabitant of Dangerous Monkey Planet.

I do have things to say about Roswell itself, and its gorgeous library, but I am still processing that one a bit. I may post today, maybe tomorrow, and maybe in the writing I will be able to adequately (and diplomatically) express my impression of the place.