The Severed Cortex

What a bummer. It's the last day of vacation. Sometimes I'm ready to come home but not this time. I really like New Mexico, perhaps more than any other place we've visited. Obviously British Columbia has to still be up near the top of my list, but this place gives it a run for its money. I've been here for 6 days at somewhere around a constant 7,000 feet and for the first time in I don't know how long, I've been able to breathe. Nancy says the sky seems bigger out here to her so maybe that and the mountains and the clear air are what draw me to this place. Except for the abject poverty of the Native American population and the apparent need for those living in the country to keep a junkyard next to their house, I could see myself living here. I could easily swap the bass boat for a drift boat and subsist on fly fishing for trout.

The day starts off just like yesterday. Continental breakfast. However, this morning there is also bacon, natures most perfect naturally occurring food. We plan our trip back to Albuquerque with a few stops. First, Starbucks for a coffee. Second, a stop in the next town over to mail postcards to Robert and Parker. The third I'll explain in a minute. We say goodbye to the Casa Blanca Inn. Despite the fact that the room temperature was never right, this is a very nice, relaxing place to stay. It's about the only thing resembling luxury in Farmington. I don't want to knock Farmington too much. It's a decent enough place I'm sure, but it's definitely not located in the most scenic region of New Mexico. High Desert is about the right description.
The only real way back to Albuquerque is via U.S. 550, a four lane divided highway. I didn't expect the scenery to be all that nice so the third thing we wanted to do was take one more scenic ride through the mountains. From the map, it appeared we could take Highway 126 out of Cuba. Technically it's called the Jemez Mountain Trail. That last word is very important. The map symbol for Highway 126 changed about 10 miles east of Cuba and according to the map legend, it was called 'Other Highway'. As we headed east out of Cuba, there were numerous signs along the way that stated there was unimproved road up ahead. I, in my infinite wisdom, assumed that unimproved road meant really old mountain road with no shoulders and possibly the occasional gravel. It didn't. It literally meant trail. When the blacktop ended and we started into the gravel, I thought 'no big deal'. I've driven country roads most all of my life and a lot of those times were spent in grain trucks shifting a high/low axle and hauling 400 bushels or more of wheat, corn, and beans. An 1/8th mile into the gravel and the road turns to mud. An 1/8th mile after the mud starts and I'm climbing a hill of mud. At times the car is almost completely sideways and it's a pretty steep drop if you slide off the edge. About halfway up the hill I start to think that my idea of taking the scenic Jemez Mountain Trail might be one of the worst ideas I've ever had. Fortunately, I made it to the top of the hill and even more fortunate for me was fact there was a turnaround area right there. I used it. Coming back down the hill of mud was no joy either though. It was just as slick and both Nancy and I were somewhere around pucker factor 9. But my experience driving loaded grain trucks off Black Island road after a heavy fall rain gave me the skills to know how to handle it. Yeah, the Maxima got a little sideways at times and Nancy said I was going to fast, but I knew I had to keep the speed up or I'd get stuck in the mud. We eventually made it back to the blacktop with only a slightly elevated heart rate. We stopped on the side of the road to check out the mud bath. The car had a fair amount of mud on it and even though I had the back windows down only 2 or 3 inches, the back seat had wads of mud on it. The wheel wells were almost solidly packed with mud. We picked the mud out of the back seat, took a few pictures, then headed back to Albuquerque via the boring divided highway. The scenery did get much better the closer we got to Bernalillo. Somewhere outside of Bernalillo I said, "You know, I thought the return flight home was at 4:45 pm, but I never actually checked". Good thing Nancy could reach into my backpack to look because the flight was actually at 3:45 pm. This meant that we had no time to goof aoround in Bernalillo like we had hoped. In fact, if we had been able to take the Jemez Mountain Trail we might have missed our flight.
We found a gas station on I-25 just north of Albuquerque and filled up. When I turned the wheel, you could hear the tires scraping against the dried mud in the wheel wells. I paid three bucks more to get a car wash in a fruitless attempt to rid the car of all the mud. It got most of it off but it still left several pounds of it packed into the fender wheel wells. Enterprise didn't seem to care as they handed me the receipt when I turned it in. However, what I thought was going to be a $200 rental for the week, (plus the $50 or so bucks for the GPS), turned into a $325 hit on my AmEx. New Mexico can rent you a cheap car only because they tack on all sorts of fees afterward. We wound up with another $75 in fees and taxes, most of which had dubious sounding names or names that sounded like each other.

We grabbed lunch in the airport, then arrived at our gate with plenty of time to spare. The flight home was uneventful except that both the take off and landing were a little squirrelly. We were fighting weather coming in and because of it we came in on a flight path I've never experienced before despite the fact that I've probably landed at Lambert close to 100 times. First we flew in over downtown. No big deal, done that probably 30% of the time. Then we flew out over St. Charles County only to double back again and head towards the airport coming from the west, as is typical for most flights coming into Lambert. It was a little strange but we arrived safely and that's all I care about. Baggage claim was relatively quick, The Parking Spot was somewhat quick. As we were exiting the guy in front of me appeared to be paying in Mexican Pesos. However, it wasn't too long before we were on the interstate and headed home. We just beat a wave of storms that rolled through a little later.

Nancy is bummed out about being back in Saint Louis again.