Remember a few chapters back when I
told you about all the fancy big rigs rich folks drive--and how they made
me feel like a poor neighbor in the WalMart parking lots? The Las Cruces
WalMart is different. In Las Cruces, my beatup old camper was the newest,
most beautiful in the lot. About eight campers were parked near us
at WalMart, one crudier than the next. Directly behind us was the cruddiest
of all. It had dents all over it, suggesting it had been rolled a few
times. Our ancient beige was a beautiful color next to this--actually,
I couldn't really tell what color it was because the camper was covered in
dust.
It had about six tires on the roof, along
with what appeared to be a kitchen dinette from the fifties. There
was an old gas can on the back, and the right front seat seemed to be full
of old clothing or rags. I couldn't tell the difference without getting
too close. Near the rear on the left side, was a hand painted warning
in red: "No moleste." Good thought.
Nearby, a brown car was parked with an old, dark man sleeping in it. Every now and then, he woke up, looked at us, had a cigarette, then went back to sleep again. He was there for two days. We might have seen him on Thursday as well, but we decided to go to a campground where we could relax and clean up before the show. He Bogarted his cigarettes.
Our first problem on the ride was noticed
when we stopped for gas Thursday morning. The door had fallen off the
water heater! It was no great loss, really, as the previous owner of
Rocinante must have lost the original door and replaced it with a white one,
then tried to paint it beige to match the rest of the camper. He did
a rotten job and half of it peeled off, so it looked pretty bad. I
figured a nice beige replacement would look better.
Unfortunately, the shop we found in the
middle of nowhere by the interstate only had white, so now Rocinante has
a big white square on her side, looking something like a big bandaide.
We didn't have time to stay very look, but The Big Cross was actually pretty cool. It had statues all around it of the various stations of the cross, as well as replicas of Jesus' grave and Mt. Calgary.
We wanted to see the Carlsbad Caverns. That meant getting off the interstate at Lubbock and traveling across west Texas to southern New Mexico, then back across Texas, meeting the interstate at El Paso, and heading north to Los Cruces. This meant a trip across the Chihuahua desert, an endless journey through 300 miles of nothing. Our bobbleheaded hood ornament loved it. He felt he had returned to his roots and could hardly wait for us to pull over to the side of the road so he could leave his mark amongst the cacti and the whiptail lizards.
Before heading out across the next part of the dessert, we stopped at an Exxon in the town of Carlsbad, about 30 miles from the National Park. The peculiar thing about this gas station, however, was the fact that it wasn't a gas station. There was no attendant, no building, just gas.
I put in my credit card and filled up
the tank.
"Don't forget to get the receipt," called
Diane.
"Don't worry about it. It's printing
now."
I waited, but nothing printed. Finally,
a sign appeared on the pump computer screen: PLEASE SEE ATTENDANT FOR RECEIPT.
See attendant? What attendant? There was no attendant!
We finally arrived at the Caverns and
were delighted to find that our Golden Eagle Pass was good for the entry fee.
The girl at the desk looked at me and said, "It takes about an hour and a
half to walk down to the caverns, so you might want to take the elevator."
Diane said, "What do you think is best?"
Before I could answer, the girl said, "The
walk is pretty strenuous."
Take the elevator? Am I that old
and fat? Maybe I shouldn't have given myself that crewcut the other
day when we were parked behind that puppy farm on wheels. Freddy said
it made me look older.
"A lot older?"
"Old, Dad. You look really really
old."
"But I was tired of waking up with bedhead
everyday. I kept going into Walmart with my hair uncombed looking like
a giant Selkirk Rex."
"Don't cut your hair anymore, Dad.
Please."
One thing was for sure--we were walking
down into the caverns. Screw the elevator!
We had a really nice time in the caves,
although my battery went dead on the camera early and we didn't get many pictures.
Freddy got to learn a lot about geology, too.
"Now, do you see those long, pointed things
popping up from the ground, Freddy?"
"Yes, Daddy."
"Those are called STALAGMITES. They
build up after centuries of mineral-enriched water drips from the ceiling."
"Oh, I see. And what do you call
the pointy things coming down from the top of the cave?"
"Those are made pretty much the same way
and are called STALACTITES."
"And what about those things that come
up from the ground, but aren't pointy at all? They're big and hard
and round on the tops."
"Oh, those are called PHALLICMITES," I
said.
We had a good time at Carlsbad Caverns, then moved on. In Texas, past the Salt Flats of the desert, we stopped at the Guadalupe National Monument. It was a lot like the Grand Tetons. Unless you planned to mount an expedition and go climbing, all you can do is see the mountains from a distance. We got to look at the highest peak in Texas, but our hearts belong to the Rockies. We've never been to Europe, but as far as the continental US is concerned, all non-Rocky Mountains are lame by comparison. We felt the same way last year at Yosemite National Park--nice mountains, but no Rockies.
As we walked to the car, I told Diane
I wanted to see the Butterfield Stage Depot ruins, just a quarter of a mile
up the road. It was one of those cowboy things I had grown up with.
Suddenly, Freddy, who had gone to the camper ahead of us, came running.
"Mom! Dad! The truck is full
of hornets!"
"Oh my God," screamed Diane. "The
animals!"
When we got to the car, all I could see
were two hornets inside the windshield.
"They're coming from that tree next to
the camper," yelled Freddy.
Diane had already opened the side door
and gotten the dogs out. "What are we going to do?"
We stood on the very ground where the
Butterfield Stage used to travel, fighting off Indians and criminals.
I thought quickly. What would John Wayne have done?
"Step aside, Pilgrim," I said. "I've
got to go in there and drive the camper away from that there tree."
As I climbed in the camper, expecting to
find a dozen hornets waiting for me, sharpening their stingers like the warrior
bees in Disney's cartoon, "Donald Duck, Beekeeper," I felt some trepidation,
I admit, but when a man is in the John Wayne mode, there is no such thing
as fear.
The two hornets on the windshield were
all I saw as I put the car into gear and drove it to safety. When I
stopped, they had somehow disappeared. As I grabbed the cheesy plastic
fly swatter we had purchased at a dollar store, wishing it was a Colt .45,
Diane came aboard with the bug spray. She sprayed a few places, since
she had the can, but the hornets were nowhere to be found. They had
either sensed their coming doom and made a quite exit out the driver's side
window, or Freddy may have been exaggerating again. I just don't know
where he gets that--must be from his mother's side.
We just barely made it out of the desert
with an empty tank when we hit the outskirts of El Paso. From there,
the ride was fairly uneventful and we got to Las Cruces in the late afternoon.
After another scuffle involving Diane's map reading skills, we decided to
spend the night at a campground. We hit the pool twice, and played horseshoes,
cleaned up both ourselves and the holding tanks, and arrived at the cat show
for setup Friday afternoon.
We had to cross the Rio Grande to get
to the show hall which was a quite a way out of town, at a place called Dickenson's
Auction Hall and Barbeque. The show hall seemed quite small, but the
people were friendly. They gave us another table for free and made
Freddy a clerk--his first time on his own. Diane expected disaster;
I had a funny feeling that we would do well.
She was pretty busy on Saturday, until
11:00, which must have been siesta time, because the gate stopped dead.
It picked up a little in the late afternoon. After the show, we visited
Old Messilla, the little town where Billy the Kid was tried and sentenced
to hang. It had some nice shops, but everything was closing up when
we got there at 4:30. The smells from the fine Mexican restaurants made
Diane cook Tortillas that night, but it just wasn't quite the same thing.
Man, I drooled at the fajitas Freddy got for lunch as a clerk. It made
my turkey sandwich look sick.
I've always gotten nervous when I have
to handle money. As we don't know how to set the tax percentage on our
little calculator, we have to do it mathematically and I just always get
confused. Anyway, when Diane got busy at the cat show, she asked me
to help a lady looking at tee shirts. We found two shirts she liked
at $9.95 each. She had a twenty in her hand, and when I tried to work
up the tax it came out to $1,190. I figured that meant $1.19, but I
just got all confused, so I said to the lady, "Aw, the heck with it.
Why don't I just take the twenty and we'll let it go at that."
The lady acted like she had had plenty
of experience with Mexican shopkeepers and she thought I was trying to cheat
her. "Oh no, you don't," she said. "Nine and nine is eighteen.
You figure that out." Diane took the calculator and said, "There.
You owe us $21.19."
The lady had to fork over another $1.19,
and all I could do is feel humiliated. "You thought I was trying to
cheat you, you bitch? There! I was estimating on your side, you
jackass." That's what I wanted to say.
A truck parked outside the showhall had
a sign decaled on its rear window: "Dedicated to the Memory of Fast Freddie."
Was that movie based on a real story?
We're very proud of our own Freddy.
The judge spoke ecstatically about his work as a clerk. She pulled my
aside and told me that he was the best clerk she'd ever worked with, and
she's going to insist that Freddy be her clerk next week at the Salt Lake
City Show. He enjoys it; today, he's making his announcements over
the loudspeaker with lots more confidence; and he gets paid good money--fifty
or sixty bucks for the weekend. That gives him all the pocket money
he needs.
The show has a few more hours to go.
Unless we get some big last minute sales, I guess this is another average
one. It's not a big money maker like Stoughton was, but like Indiana
and Denver, it's over $300. It will pay expenses to the next town.
Tonight, we'll try to get a hundred miles
or so under our belts and stop as close to Albuquerque as we can. We
should get to Las Vegas by Monday night. There, we will gamble just
a little, rest just a lot, and see the town we enjoy so much. We'll
leave Vegas Thursday afternoon or evening, as we need to be in Salt Lake
City, about 450 miles away by Friday afternoon.