all of the driving and none of the signs
Fri 2015-11-20 23:53:11 (in context)
It's as I suspected: This week's Friday Fictionette will show up on Saturday. While I suppose I could have gotten it done and published if I'd gotten right to work after checking into my motel at 9:30 PM, the reality is... Ten-hour drive, y'all. Ten. Hour. Drive. Solo. It just seemed a better use of my time to take a walk, find some dinner, and relax.
I'm staying in the vicinity of University and I-10, which is having a strange effect on my nostalgia circuits. On a lizard-brain gut instinct level, I'm absolutely certain I'm back in at the University of Washington and simultaneously about 15 minutes away from my parents' New Orleans-area home via the interstate. In any case, a ten-minute walk along University brought me within hearing range of electric guitars and a country-rock beat, which reeled me into a sports bar called The Game. I had a beer, ate far too much, and enjoyed the band's original tunes extravagantly.
The drive from Boulder to Las Cruces went fairly well. I did the three and a half hours to Raton easily, stopped for lunch at Pappa's Sweet Shop & Restaurant, then proceeded to drive the remaining six or so hours straight through. I'm not sure how that was possible, but I'm happy to attribute it to the coffee at Pappa's.
The only real shenanigans occurred just west of the little New Mexico town of Vaughn. That's where I missed my turn to remain on US Hwy 54 West/South and instead continued some five miles on along 285 North. Only I didn't know it, because for that stretch of highway, there were absolutely no signs whatsoever indicating what highway I was on. There weren't even speed limit signs. There was nothing but the back-sides of the ridiculously frequent WRONG WAY signs.
Then I got to the next little town and continued to have no clue whatsoever, because the main drag was merely labeled US HIGHWAY. Just that. No number, nothing. Thankfully, once I got just past that little town, there was a cluster of signs indicating I was on 285 and 60 (but not 54), so I got suspicious and turned around.
Encino, New Mexico! Where being lost isn't a bug; it's a feature!
Anyway, that was the only hitch. Otherwise, it was an easy drive and a gorgeous one, sunny and surprisingly warm for mid-November-- a huge contrast from the looming snow clouds I left behind in Colorado. And now I am likely to fall over, so please excuse me while I make sure the falling happens over something soft. Like a motel bed.