Reflections

Having been home for a couple of days, it's time now to reflect on the trip, recording some high points and interesting occurrences and observations.

Memorable:

The wind farms in western Texas and eastern New Mexico, dozens and dozens of giant white windmills with 200-foot wingspans turning slowly in the prevailing winds. In one sense they looked like giant guests at a giant cocktail party, standing around and chatting.

The road signs warning of dangerous crosswinds. We never felt them, so I guess the winds were calmer than usual.

Trucks that pull out right in front of you into the left lane to pass other trucks, at the same time that you want to pull out and pass the trucks, right when the highway begins to ascend. The same trucks finally giving up after a mile or more of trying to pass and pull right back in where they started.

The steady rise in altitude from 981 feet in Joplin to 5280 feet in Albuquerque, to 7040 feet in Santa Fe. The appearance of mountains in the distance once you make it into New Mexico. Mountains all around.

The Historic Route 66 signs along the way, reminders of the heyday of the world's greatest highway. Europeans come to America just to ride Route 66. Fancy that.

The incident at the gas station at Louisiana and San Antonio in Albuquerque. I'm starting to fill our gas tank prior to leaving for Santa Fe on Thursday morning when a car pulls up to the pump on the other side, this young guy gets out and starts up a conversation with me, asking me for a few gallons of gas because no one in this town is willing to help him. He & his son are on their way to Denver and have no money and are out of gas. So I, being a kind-hearted Christian soul, decide to help him. Instead of giving him money, I swipe my card at his pump and tell him I'll buy him a couple of gallons of gas. He asks for 3 or more, and ups it to $15 worth. I watch as he stops the pump at $15.01, then go back to my car on the other side, to finish up. He remains standing there on the other side of the pump, and I begin to feel something's not right. I say, "Where's your son?" He says, "He's in the store." So I decide to wash my windshield, while he continues to stand there on the other side of the pump. When I put up the squeegee, it occurs to me that I should go over on the other side and retrieve the receipt from the pump. When I walk over there, he's standing there, still holding onto the pump handle. He hasn't put it back on the pump. I say, "Put up the handle so I can get my receipt." He does so, I get my receipt, then he shakes hands with me and thanks me, saying "God bless you." I start to walk off, and then turn around and say, "Now, you weren't going to fill your tank after I drove off, were you?" He says, "No, sir, I'm not like that!" I grunt something and go back to the car and drive off, giving the receipt to Leslie. Then for the rest of the trip I worry that somehow he got my credit card number and was going to start charging iPods and TV's and stuff. Of course, it never happened. But I almost inadvertently filled a guy's gas tank, and maybe more besides that. Such behavior ruins Christian charity. He probably drove off to another gas station and gave the same spiel to someone else. He probably lives in Albuquerque. Nevertheless, I did something to help someone, and if he was on his way to Denver, then I did a good thing. But it looked like he was going to take me for a whole lot more. By the way, I never saw the son.

That deed may have spared us a disaster on Saturday. We were driving in the right lane down San Mateo in Albuquerque, on our way to lunch after having shopped at Jackalope's, when this young woman in a dark compact car starts to cut across our lane on her way to make a quick right turn. When I saw what was happening, I accelerated and honked at the same time. She continued, not hearing me, apparently, and I saw in the rear view mirror that she just missed clipping the back fender. We were both prepared for a crunch of metal. Here we were, on our last day in Albuquerque, about to be involved in a car wreck that would delay our leaving for who knows how long? But guess what? She missed us. I could see in the rear view mirror that she was turned to her right talking to someone in the passenger seat the whole time and never noticed how close she came to hitting us. Call it Karma, call it Providence, call it a reward for buying $15 of gas for a scam artist. Whatever it was, we should have been hit but weren't. Thank you, Lord!

Central Avenue in Albuquerque. It's the old Route 66, and there are still motels on the street, with those old Route-66 era neon signs. It was mid-afternoon, but it didn't matter. There were even motel signs where there were no longer motels. And old rehabbed gas stations with the unique architecture. Carolyn told us that Central and the neighborhoods around it aren't nice at night, but in the daytime one can exult in Route 66 memorabilia. We went to a couple of antique stores while on Central.

The Indian pueblos, the Acomas up on a mesa and the Taos Indians on the plain near a rushing creek. Impressive adobe buildings. About 300 people still live on the mesa at Sky City, the Acoma pueblo, where there is no electricity, no running water, and no plumbing. There are, however, propane tanks and generators that are fired up during football season! Oh, and each adobe house has its own porta-potty out back.

The feeling that we white Europeans done the native Americans wrong. I was reminded of the Paul Revere and the Raiders song, "Indian Reservation", which speaks of the loss of the old way and the white culture forced on the Cherokees.

(By the way, just for fun, click on this YouTube video of PR&R singing the first anti-drug song of the 60's. It was 1966, my high school graduation year. Dig those go-go dancers! I was a big Paul Revere and the Raiders fan in the day, a bigger fan than of the Beatles, even.)

However, I also reflected on the vast difference between Aztecan and Mayan cultures and the plains Indians. Also on the advances of the Egyptians and Babylonians and Europeans. What drove those cultures to such heights of scientific and mathematical achievements? And why didn't the the Acomas, the Taos, the Navahos, the Osage, the Apaches, the Comanches, the Shoshones, and so on, make such advances? Was it the landscape? Anyway, as a 1/16th Chippewa, I was grateful to discover some of the culture and history of the two tribes that we visited.

One last thing to say about the native American Indian tribes: casinos. Need I say more? They were everywhere we went, on every highway, every byway.

Crisp high altitude air, low humidity, deep blue skies, no rain, hardly any clouds, and the ever-present hulking mountains rising above the plains. However, something about the climate or air or altitude in New Mexico made my sinuses swell shut. I couldn't breathe for most of the time I was there, until I bought some OTC decongestant tablets at Wal-Mart. Then I got some relief.

I am sure there are more reflections, but I must stop these now and post this entry before it becomes too too long.