Days 110-120: Family Thanksgiving



Well, Quinne arrived on time on Wednesday afternoon and the roads were clear. She was very excited about being in Texas for the first time and commented frequently about how flat it was. As we were driving south toward Littlefield, I pointed out my window and said, "See that?" She looked a little puzzled. "What?" "Oklahoma. About 200 miles from here."

 

Well, it was more important that in the snow fields surrounding us, she got to see working oil wells and huge bales of cotton. We even drove through Hereford, TX, The Beef Capital of the World! We got into Littlefield right on time at about 4:30 and met the rest of the family. My next older sister Sharon played hostess to us. My younger sister, Kim, had flown in on Monday to Lubbock. My eldest sister Lael and her grandson Wayne flew to Lubbock at the same time Quinne was arriving in Amarillo. It was the first time my sisters and I had all been together since Mom died in '99. Sadly, my second oldest sister passed away last spring and we missed her.

 

Thanksgiving Dinner was held at my great-niece (or is that grand-niece?) Destiny's home and there were about thirty of us gathered in Lubbock. Niece Julia and both her daughters, Destiny and Angel, were with us. It was the first time I'd seen Destiny and Angel in 22 years. What beautiful young ladies they've become. Angel's little girl, Katie, who adopted Quinne as soon as she walked in the door, took advantage of the last remaining snow to build a snowman on the front steps.

Kim decided to have her hair cut and give it to Locks of Love while we were all together. She did it in memory of our parents and sister and she held pictures of them while we gathered around the barber chair.

Of course, the time came for everyone to head back on Monday and I drove Quinne up to Amarillo. We got there early enough to have breakfast at the Big Texan. She found that the 72oz steak wasn't the only thing that was big. Neither of us could finish the quantity of food they served us for breakfast!

I was slated to fly back to Seattle today to spend the holiday and get some work done on the house. I had my boarding pass printed yesterday when I found out my flight had been cancelled. We got a bit of snow and ice, but DFW is totally iced-in. After an hour on the phone with American Airlines last night, I got rebooked for Sunday morning at 6:50 a.m. This morning at 8:00 they called to tell me that flight has also been cancelled. DFW is still iced-in and not expected to open before tomorrow evening. At least this time, they called me with the info and a new reservation. Now I'm scheduled to fly in on Monday 12/9, assuming that winter storm Dion (following winter storm Cleon) continues to swing north of us.

I've been using the time productively. This week, I've put out seven new books and editions. These include the new book/eBook by Mark Sawyer, "Master, Swami, Nun, Sinner, Swinger, ONE," and the eBook version of his previous paperback, "A Nickel's Worth." I put out my new adult eBook under the name of Devon Layne, "The Props Master 1: Ritual Reality." I put out the eBook version of Jason Black's middle grade historical adventure, "Bread for the Pharaoh" that is available for free on Kindle on Saturday and Sunday. Finally, I've released both the paper and eBook of my newest literary fiction, "The Volunteer." I still have a backlog of books to get out and am expecting more next week. I guess as long as I'm snowed in, I might as well stay productive!

With luck, the next post will be from Seattle!

Days 101-109: Running from the Storm

It was a turbulent time. I say that so easily. Actually, it wasn't all bad weather. I explored Espanola and finished my new book, "Redtail," while I was that week. That was some kind of record for me in NaNoWriMo. According to my stats, I finished the 50,000 word goal on November 8, finished the first draft at 89,653 on November 14, and finished the rewrite and book at 100,333 words on November 23. Oh. And I took three days off writing from the 15th-17th to finish the layouts for "Master, Swami, Nun, Sinner, Swinger, ONE." I impressed myself.

I hitched up and moved from Espanola to Taos on Wednesday the 20th and was advised to go immediately to Taos Pueblo. I did and loved it. I spent a couple hours just walking around and talking to the craftsmen/women and eating hot flatbread with powdered sugar. Yum.

 

On Thursday, I drove up to Taos Ski Village. I'd heard there was snow at higher levels and I wanted to check out the conditions, but I had another reason to go up there. A long time ago, my friend Chris Wooldridge moved to Taos to take over a ski lodge and restaurant with his brother, Tim. They were making a go of it at the Edelweiss Hotel when Chris died suddenly. Jean, his wife, asked me to do the memorial service back in Seattle. I'd forgotten that the Edelweiss had burned that spring, so what I saw up there wasn't the hotel that Chris and Tim built up. I did see Tim's new restaurant at Arroyo Hondo, but I was too early for it to be open. Nonetheless, I did find out that there was snow aplenty at 9,000 feet and I started wondering about crossing the pass on Friday.

I was pretty amused by the cattle signs. It seems these are all over New Mexico. It's hard enough watching for the cattle, but for UFOs, too? One friend said that the bullet hole was a warning not to stand too close to the sign. One had to wonder where the other five bullets from that six-shooter went!

Well, the dire predictions proved true. Friday morning I woke up to snow. About three inches of it. It was wet and sloppy, but the word was that the pass I intended to cross had closer to a foot of snow and another storm was moving in by 11:00. I had to shovel snow off the roof of the trailer and the canopy over the slide-out in order to pull it in. Got my propane tanks filled again and was on my way south by 10:30, just as the snow began coming down in earnest again.

 By the time I got down into the Rio Grande Valley, the snow had cleared and I thought I'd outrun it. I was a little disappointed because heading back south meant I'd miss seeing the Capulin Caldera, but the weather report was looking bleak for that area and it was unlikely that I'd have made it up to the peak even if I'd managed the pass. By Santa Fe, the weather looked pretty clear and I headed south on 285 figuring that by avoiding the Sandia Mountains around Albuquerque it would be a smooth downhill trip to I-40.

Not so. Not only did I gain elevation steadily, I hit the snowstorm again. Crawling along the highway in the snow and ice, I passed a couple accidents before I made it to Cline Corners. I stopped for lunch and the snow seemed to stop as well, so I headed East. I figured that  it was all downhill to Amarillo from here. It was, but I hit another storm and didn't get out of it until Santa Rosa. It was getting dark and I didn't want to risk driving at night, so I spent the night in a line of big rigs parked in the Love's truckstop.

Saturday morning I headed out again in a snowstorm. I calculated this trip. It was really cold the previous night, but the pavement was dry. The snow that was coming down was light, unlike the heavy wet stuff of the previous day, so I figured the pavement would be less slippery. I just got behind the slowest truck headed over the pass to Tucumcari, turned on my flashers, and crawled along. It wasn't too bad and took about 90 minutes to make the 50-mile drive. About half an hour out of Tucumcari I hit dry pavement again and it was pretty smooth sailing from there to Amarillo. The trailer was a mess, though!

At Veda, we were routed off the Interstate onto the frontage road for about five miles due to an accident the night before that was still being cleaned up. A dozen vehicles and three fatalities. Jack-knifed rigs with broken cases of fruit were scattered all over the highway. I pulled into Amarillo about 1:30 in the afternoon (another hour time-change to Central Standard Time) and went straight to a truck wash to get the crud off the rig. A lot of drivers had the same idea and it took an hour-and-a-half to get through. By the time I reached my campsite, the snow had begun again. I got set up and went out for an early dinner/late lunch at 3:00. By the time I got back to the campsite, there was over an inch of new snow and it was coming down like crazy. I parked the truck, went into the trailer, and stayed there for three days!

The snow finally started melting on Tuesday and I was able to get out again. Q was slated to arrive on Wednesday. Man! I didn't come to Texas to get snow!

Day 100: Wow!

This day deserves a post of its own just because its a hundred days. It's Sunday and for some unknown reason, I've decided to find a church. The nearest Unitarians are in Los Alamos, so that's where I head. Los Alamos has a familiar ring to it, but I'm actually in the church before one of the greeters tells me that he's sorry he can't give me a tour of the labs because of the new regulations.

Oh, yeah. There's a big nuclear and bio lab here. That's why there's a town of close to 20,000 people isolated up here in the mountains. And it is isolated on a couple ridge fingers that are nine miles apart.

It was a nice service on the tao of difference. The church is also working on a building campaign and seems to be well on their way to a new building.

One thing that was different today was that I saw snow on the upper slopes of the mountains for the first time. I knew it was getting colder up here, but I expect to be long gone before severe weather sets in. This was the view from Los Alamos.

On the way back to camp, I stopped at one of the local landmarks, Camel Rock. Usually when a rock formation has a name it's like a constellation. You squint your eyes, cock your head, and say "Yeah. I see it. Sort of." I can't imagine anyone looking at this rock and seeing anything other than a camel. It's uncanny. I thought it was fake at first.

Well, after 100 days on the road, I don't feel at all tired of this life. I certainly see the draw of not traveling as much or as fast. I think I'd still like to travel fewer miles and stay longer in places. NaNoWriMo has given me a great opportunity to meet other people in New Mexico. I'm wondering what I can use for an excuse to meet people when November is over. I've had a more lively two weeks and met more people both IRL and online than I had in the previous three months.

At the same time, I miss the people from back in Bellevue and especially Quinne. She'll fly to Amarillo on the 25th and we'll have Thanksgiving at sister Sharon's. Other sisters Kim and Lael will also fly in and there will be at least a few nephews, nieces, and grand nephews and nieces. That will be fun.

100 days. Am I ready for another 100? Yes. A thousand? I think so. We'll see.

Days 94-99: Reaching "The End"

UpAll this month, I've been in a double race. First off, there's NaNoWriMo. I reached the 50,000 word goal on the 8th, which is the fastest I've ever made it there. But my focus has always been on "finishing the book" when I do NaNo. This week, I did. Part two of my challenge is getting Mark Sawyer's new book, Master, Swami, Nun, Sinner, Swinger, ONE, laid out and back to Mark for final edits. I managed both this week.

I left Roswell on Monday morning and headed for Albuquerque. My target was to camp at a little campground near Tijeras. GPS routinely screws up. I fed it the coordinates and it tried to land me about ten miles away. I made it in and camped, then headed into Albuquerque to take a look around and get some groceries. That was the first success of the day. I found a Trader Joe's and stocked up with two big cans of coffee. It was right across the street from ABQ Uptown a whole bunch of chic shops and a Starbuck's. Managed to grab a cup of coffee and while I was wandering around I thought, "Gee this is just like a shopping center only there's no roof." Then I realized it was a shopping center and I'd just lived up north for way too long.

I did manage to get an inverter to plug into the truck so I can charge my computer in the truck. It cost almost $40. I figure that just saved me $1,000 for a generator since that seemed to be the only thing I need one for. My next outing was for a write-in on Tuesday evening at a burger place near the University. There were eight people there which made it my biggest write-in during the month. They were really nice and friendly and we all got a lot written. I ended the evening with 4,000 words for a total of 79,000.

The next day, I headed into Albuquerque again to explore. For years, I've heard about the Sandia Tramway. About two-and-a-half miles long, you ride a gondola up to the peak. I'm not wild about rides like this. Even Disneyland gives me a little jolt when you ride that Swiss gondola thing. Do they even have that anymore? I'd talked myself out of going to the tramway a dozen times and finally got disgusted and said "This is what I came on this trip for. To do things that I used to pass up." So I went. Driving the fifteen miles out to the base of Sandia peak and pulled up to the guardhouse. It was closed for fall maintenance. I don't know whether to be upset or relieved. Both, I guess.

So I headed for Old Town. It was pretty cool. The anchor of Old Town in Albuquerque is San Felipe de Neri church, in continuous operation since 1704. It's a beautiful old church.

 

I drove on out to Petroglyphs National Monument--once again over the objections of my GPS. I only try to get close with the GPS now. Then I screw around hunting things up online and following their directions. Regardless, it was getting pretty late and the ranger asked how rigorous a walk I wanted. I said only moderate and she pointed me to Boca Negra Canyon where it was a nice paved path. I'm glad I didn't ask for anything rigorous! It was a steep trail around many rocks in order to get near the top of the mesa where a number of very good petroglyphs were visible. I took the side trail all the way to the top of the mesa as well and it showed a beautiful view of the entire city.

 



I stayed in Tijeras one more night before decamping for Santa Fe and in the process managed to write "The End" on my manuscript. 89,653 words. Of course, I already knew that I needed to go back and fill in a bunch of other stuff, but I had a finished work and it wasn't bad. The next day I left for Santa Fe.

I traveled the Turquoise Trail east of the Sandia Mountains. I really love the New Mexico Mountains. they are beautiful and this fall weather has been glorious. I love it out here.

My next campground was in Espanola, NM, about 25 miles north of Santa Fe. It is a small and pretty crappy campground. Gravel sites are not particularly level. There was power and water and sewer connections, but I already knew the forecasts were to be too cold for me to connect the water and leave it. One of the reasons I chose this site was that it's website talked about its newly remodeled restrooms and showers. Yes they were. But there was no heat in them. Brrrr.

I went to one of the local casinos, the Ohkay Casino and discovered they had a $15 special on their all you can eat crab buffet. Of course, one order was all I could eat, especially when you combine it with the oysters, salad, shrimp, and slab of roast beef that would have been a meal in itself. Still, it was good and I won enough at my first sit-down at a blackjack machine to pay for dinner and take five bucks extra home with me.

Saturday I went into Santa Fe and tried to follow the signs to the Plaza. I ended up several blocks away and walked a lot more than I intended. Hiking around at 7,200 feet is still a little tiring to me. I had a nice lunch, though and headed to the write-in.

 

The first thing I did at the write-in was delete a little over a thousand words and start filling in the places that I needed to set things up that occurred later in the book.  It was good and I started getting into the swing of my characters again. Also met a couple dozen other writers and agreed to get together again on Tuesday. When I got back to the trailer, I managed to get the layout finished for Mark's book and got it off to him so he'd have it when he got to Thailand.

Days 86-93: The High Point and the Low Point

I had another write-in (2-person) in Alamogordo on Sunday afternoon but only camped overnight there. However, just across the street from my camp was one of the region's big pistachio ranches and home of the world's largest pistachio.

Mentone, Indiana has a much-maligned ten-foot statue of an egg in the middle of town, declaring it the "Eggbasket of the World." It would be dwarfed by this pistachio. Well, it's quite a nice tribute to the area's number one cash-crop. And they are good!

I headed south on U.S. 54 from Alamogordo to El Paso, Texas. My first trip through Texas was short as I simply crossed the Transmountain Drive to I-25 and went back north into New Mexico to camp a couple of nights in Vado as my base for visiting El Paso.

The Transmountain Drive figured prominently in the novel I'd read and it was pretty spectacular. There lies El Paso and then Mexico. Found that border again.

I had another two-person write-in at Fort Bliss in El Paso. That was interesting as I didn't know I was actually invited to a shopping center that was on the base. I was stopped and asked for ID before I could go on. That was the extent of the check, though. I was waved on. It was very pleasant. Met a writer who writes very slowly by my standard. I was pushing 60,000 words by the time we met and she was a little over a thousand. Her last book took her three years to write, but it is in the hands of an agent who is having some success getting her a contract. More power to her.

Remembering the admonishment of the couple I met at Canyon de Chelly, I made my next stop Guadalupe Mountains National Park. From El Paso, U.S. 180 heads east through the Salt Flats to the Guadalupe Mountains before turning northward past Carlsbad Caverns. It was an easy choice. Guadalupe Peak is the highest point in Texas at well over 8,000 feet. You can see it for many miles before you reach it.

I camped in the National Park at the foot of the mountain. That little hill in front of me is only a small false summit. I decided that at this altitude, I wasn't prepared for what was described as a rigorous eight mile hike to the summit.

Instead, I took a separate trail into McKittrick Canyon with more modest elevation gain and an incredible change of terrain as the trail follows a creek into what Wallis Pratt described as the most beautiful place on earth. Wallis was a geologist surveying the land for oil back at the turn of the century. As it happened, I met a geologist along the walk who pointed out the various rock formations and what they looked for when surveying for oil. It was pretty fascinating, but most of what I took from it was that this whole canyon area was once the reef of a vast inland ocean. Cool.

After I finished the hike, I headed for Carlsbad. I spent more for less in a campsite at the gates to the National Park than anyplace else I've camped on this trip. On the way up to the caverns (the entrance is on top of a ridge) I passed this one-time dwelling place in a cave. There was a convenient water supply and shelter.

I don't really get on well with being underground. I had to calm myself before is could get on the elevator that dropped 750 feet into the caverns. It was stunning. My camera was not adequate to capture the various formations, but I wandered around the trail for an hour of more before I finally took the elevator back to the surface. After lunch, I continued my journey north

There was a nice spot to look back down into the canyon where the cliff dwelling was. I figure that if you simply drilled straight into the rock there about a mile, you'd end up in the cavern. Instead you have to drive to the top and take one of the routes down.

I spent the weekend with the aliens in Roswell, New Mexico. They really make a big deal about the crashed flying saucer back in the 40s. Pretty much every store has a sign that says some variation of "aliens welcome." The UFO museum was pretty interesting. It did a pretty good timeline of the events, who saw what, and what happened to the evidence.

Well, I've been high up, deep down, and far out this week. Next it's on to Albuquerque.

Days 78-86: Hot water

Every so often I take a break for a week and check into a condo timeshare. The purpose: Unlimited hot water for showers and hot tub. Pinecliff in Ruidoso was a great example. It's an older timeshare development and the rooms show a little wear, but the rustic atmosphere is perfect for the area. And whatever the facility lacks, the staff makes up for. I've never had such a pleasant orientation breakfast or a staff that offered to lead tours (at no charge) for those of us who wanted a little more education on the places nearby.

The first stop on our tour was St. Joseph's Church on the Mescalero Apache lands. This church has been in continuous operation for nearly 400 years and is full every Sunday even though the Franciscans no longer staff it with a full time priest. It has and continues to undergo extensive restoration and is quite beautiful. I was impressed with the images in the church.

I loved the artwork, like the Jesus over the altar and this image of Mary in one of the stained glass windows. They all depict Jesus and the saints as members of their tribe. Very personal.

After lunch with my host at a New Mexico buffet in Tularosa, I continued out to the White Sands National Monument. I hadn't intended to take a hike, but there was a trail (sort of) with markers every so often to indicate where to go next. The sands truly are white and the clouds were, too.

The next tour was to the Spencer Theater in Ruidoso. This very expensive and very modern theater sits in the middle of about 70 acres out in the mountains. It has a 505 seat capacity and books traveling productions between LA and points east. A great selection of shows brought to this remote location. They don't do their own productions, so have a permanent full-time staff of only half a dozen plus contract help that come as needed. Before each production, they serve a buffet dinner, usually themed to go with the performance. The theater is filled with Chihouly glass sculptures.

I realized that the timing of my stay in Ruidoso was awkward. I would be spending the first day of November traveling. If you are not aware of it, November is a special month for me. For ten years, I have written a novel (or two) in each month of November. It wasn't going to work out well for me to have to pull up stakes first thing on Friday and move to a new unknown camp. Fortunately, the staff came through again and invited me to spend a couple extra days without charge. As a result, I started writing Thursday night at midnight and kept going until Sunday morning when I broke camp with over 20,000 words in by new novel completed.

Note that this is a Devon Layne novel as it contains explicit adult content. At the same time, I'm pretty damned pleased with the way it's progressing. I even managed to arrange a write-in at Viva! coffee shop in Ruidoso where two of us sat in front of a nice fire and drank our coffee while meeting more than our daily quota of words.

Since the new story is an Erotic Paranormal Romance Western Mystery, I donned my Stetson and saluted all the NaNoWriMo writers pounding out words this month.

Days 75-77: Following the trail

What trail, you might ask? I found a story set in New Mexico by an author I'd read before. Pretty exciting story about a couple guys with some special mental abilities who flit around New Mexico hunting for lost treasures and attempting to solve the mysteries of why the region is experiencing more sizemic and volcanic activity. He describes a lot of sites around New Mexico and I started looking for them and reading the book when I got here. It led me to some places I might not have gone. In corresponding with him, I discovered that I was spending my first couple nights in New Mexico not far from where he lives, so we had a lively email exchange.

I updated the map on the trailer since I'm now in New Mexico and then started looking for the landmarks. Of course, since I was still generally following old Hwy 66, I had to climb to the top of the Continental Divide. I crossed back and forth over it in Montana, but now I'm actually east and continuing to travel east of the divide. It was a pretty predictable "opportunity for a gift shop" sort of place and you couldn't really see anything interesting, but I figure it's all downhill from here, right?

I headed south of Albuquerque, figuring I'd get there later. I stopped for a couple days in Bernardo, NM at a RV park that also includes a horse hotel and caters to people traveling with their equine companions. Bernardo is at an elevation of a little over 4,700 feet, but you aren't likely to find population information. Aside from the RV park on the other side of the freeway, there is no sign of life in the "community" of Bernardo. Looks like there used to be a kind of restaurant or shop at the interchange, but it's all empty now. The interchange, by the way, is Interstate 25 and U.S. Hwy 60.

I turned on U.S. 60 east and figured I'd run into town. Thirty miles later, I came to the Abo Ruins in the Salinas Pueblo Missions National Monument. Wow! This mission was built in the early 1600s in a village that had been occupied for a few hundred years before that. In the mid-century, it was expanded and was the center of a vital community. But in the late 1600s, there were the combined effects of rebellion and Apache raids that drove the community out of existence and fleeing northwest. Much of the mission still stands and has one of the best guided tours (as in markers and booklet) that I've seen. The ruins were truly stunning.

I went on into Mountair and got a few things I needed from the hardware store. Had lunch at Ancient Cities restaurant and it was really good. The next day I checked out of the RV park and while I was inside saying thank you to the host, a dog wandered in front of my truck, laid down and went to sleep. It took the owner about five minutes to physically drag the dog out of the path so I could leave. I finally understood the last sign on their signpost.

A few miles south of Socorro, I turned east on U.S. 380 along the north edge of White Sands Missile Testing Range. Yes. The place they lit up the night with the first atomic bomb tests. What follows is not a picture of the aftermath, but rather another National Recreation Area just east of it. This is Valley of Fires, a huge lava flow some sixteen miles wide and fifty long. You don't actually have to Hawaii to see these lava flows. Hmm. Of course, it was a good opportunity for another self portrait as I looked out over the valley.

That was my last stop until I reached Ruidoso, and Pinecliff Village.