Shortcuts and Hazardous Driving Conditions

Trip 2: 4151 miles, 59.5 hours driving time

This was a strange day, and it seems almost fitting that it should be strange like this, at this point in the trip. There are only two more days to this trip, and part of me says it's not nearly enough. The other part of me says my car payment is late and if I'm not careful, so will my last quarterly tax filing.

When you start in a town called Truth or Consequences, you already have several things on the table. One, no one wants to live in a town with a name like that. It conjures up images of The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly. Two, you may leave a place like that, but it doesn't leave you. Something about it follows you around...

The trip to the National Very Large Array Telescope was fast (about 2 hours) and I will take this opportunity to say if you are a fan of big sky, grand vistas, and angry desert, then the journey along either I-25 or I-40 (or if you're REALLY adventurous, US-60) through New Mexico is worth every second of the trip.


I wonder if they get a good signal?

You may be asking, what the @#$@% is the National Very Large Array Telescope? It's that series of white super-huge satellite dishes in the middle of nowhere (refer to the movie "Contact"). They don't do tours in winter, so I had to hoof it. Not bad, except that the actual building where the dorks work was closed. Having satisfied the science geek aspect of my personality for the trip, I moved on.


The size of the array. WOW.


And weather STILL messes up the signal.

The problem was that I had two choices for driving routes: go back the way I came, through Albuquerque and over to Gallup or to take "the back roads" to Gallup which was the more direct route. Took the direct roads because hey, it's an adventure. The atlas wasn't lying when they said the particular state route I was on wasn't paved. 24 miles of off-roading in the Regal. Yikes. It was a mud road with cattle guards (gates that could close in order to deter cattle) every 1/2 mile. But I survived the trip from Pie Hole to Fence Lake. Not kidding. Look it up on the map.


A mud road in New Mexico and me.

Oh yeah. Slight political diversion. If you color yourself blue politically (re: you're of Democrat/liberal persuasion) bring a whole stack of CDs or a full 30 GB iPod when you visit the red states. 'Cuz Rush, Savage, Hannety, all of 'em, are on all the time, on nearly every American AM station that doesn't play country. And they are in full glory right now. And the FMs are all country. All of them.

So I made it to Gallup in one piece, in time for a late lunch, and talked to Jenny for a little bit. After a weather discussion, I hopped back on the road, this time north, and headed up US 491. You may not find US 491 on your road atlas. That's because it used to be US 666, nicknamed The Devil's Highway, and it was the source of many fatal accidents. So imagine my surprise when I saw a huge rainbow in the sky over a place called Beautiful Mountain. The big storm that's pelting California finally was reaching there, but there was a break in the clouds that was big enough to visit Four Corners during my time frame. Almost as if I was meant to be there.


You can't be dead yet... no, you're in all four states!

I took plenty of pictures of Four Corners, and while it could potentially be one of the most boring things you'd see on a road trip, I got a big kick out of it. If you've ever seen my love for maps, you'd know why. Geography and astrology were childhood loves of mine.

Now it's time to face the music. I had to head west, through northern Arizona, right through the major storm, and get to the Grand Canyon. This worked out well, despite the 20 miles of hail and 60 miles of iced-over roads. I made it... but the national parks aren't lit and it's pitch black outside. The Canyon is a giant hole, right? No moon light. No star light. Freezing cold.

I got a room in the lodge for the night. Holy rustic. It's a cabin, so no personal bathroom, and no TV. (A communal bathroom, one for 20 people.) But I do have a sink. At least the room is heated. It's funny, considering how I'm staying tonight and how I'll be staying tomorrow night (chuckle...)