Thursday, September 14
Today was a long one - nearly 450 miles, in spite of some interesting weather and a couple short detours.
We got the car loaded up, and met the morning dog. Buffalo, whose picture is on the Day 5 post, was apparently the night dog. We didn’t catch the name of the morning crew, but he came out and greeted us as we were loading up the car. Steve wanted to make friends, and we had some mini cinnamon rolls (not very good ones) that had quickly turned stale, so he offered one to the dog. Before we got out of there our new best friend had 3 or 4 cinnamon rolls.
I think we will be welcome back.
The morning crew, relaxing in the shade after scarfing some cinnamon rolls.
We started the day with a quick tour of Winslow. We didn’t stand on the corner, since there were a lot of people waiting their turns for photos, and we had done the full tourist bit two years ago. But we took some new pictures, and bought a few souvenirs.
Cool stuff around the iconic "corner" in Winslow. The giant guitar was cool, but it fit Steve far better than it did me. You may not be able to tell from the photo, but I was on tiptoe just to get my head over the top of the dang thing!
By then it was late enough to get a burger at the Sonic drive-in, which seemed somehow appropriate for Winslow.
I-40 through this part of the southwest has a 75-miles-per-hour speed limit Which means traffic moves at 80 or 85 most of the time. Which means we covered a lot of miles in a short time. We took a huge number of pictures from the car, often clicking off a dozen or more shots in the hopes of catching just the right angle.
This is another of the joys of technology; digital photography lets even the most amateur photographer take lots of pictures, trying out ways to get a good shot. It used to be that we took our 12- or 24-exposure film, sent it to be processed, waited a few days, picked up our prints and hoped for the best. Since we humans often learn best by doing, and find out what works by trying things, the painfully long feedback loop makes for a steep learning curve. I know my photo skills have been improving, and a big part of that is being able to try things. It’s a process I heartily endorse for anyone trying to master a new skill - or improve an existing one.
Another observation from today came from a discussion we had about capturing that “perfect image,” and it applies to any creative endeavor. There is a moment - often a tiny, fleeting moment - where we can capture a picture, a melody, a phrase. And sometimes we flat-out miss the moment. It’s gone and cannot be recreated. We were lamenting the failure to capture the exact combination of light and shadow and viewing angle, and realized that there are simply times we have to accept that we missed that moment, and let it go.
That isn’t always easy. We want a do-over, we want to turn around and go back, try to capture that same exact combination, but we can’t. All we can do is choose to try again, try better, try different, and learn from what we missed.
Today we missed a lot of moments as we rolled down the miles of highway, but we captured a lot of them, too. We saw light and shadow, mesas and valleys, clouds and rain and lightning, and one of the most spectacular rainbows I have seen in my entire life. That is not hyperbole, it was amazing: vivid colors, huge arches, double rainbows, all persisting for long minutes as we drove. Then we had the immense good fortune to reach an exit where we could pull off the highway (exits are few and far between in the expanse of the New Mexico desert), and the rainbow held while we found a place to pull over and get more pictures. It was our reward for driving in the rain.
Photos can never do a rainbow justice.
Nor can they give you a real feel for how huge this was.
The double rainbow is faint, but we managed to at least capture it.
Our other side trip today was to the small town of Grants, New Mexico, the location of the Route 66 arch photo op. We were the only car in the park, so we were able to take our time and take pictures of each other under the arch. The inside of the arch itself is covered with stickers, many of them custom-made to commemorate a road trip. We saw many from groups, couples, and families, and were impressed by the number of foreign visitors represented on the arch. I imagine they are periodically removed, but the visitors seem to respect the artwork on the faces of the arch and not cover it in stickers.
Steve, looking cool in his Indiana Jones hat.
I didn't bring a cool hat, but at least there are hot rods on my t-shirt.
We pulled over behind the park after taking our arch photos, and a stray dog wandered up. She didn’t look like a pet, she could have used a good meal and a bath, and it appeared that she might have a litter of pups somewhere. She was clearly looking for a handout, so we gave her the remaining cinnamon rolls. We didn’t have much else in the car, and figured some calories, even in the form of sugar, might help her through the day.
Before we left Grants we made a slow trip down the main street that runs in front of the park. Along the street is a display of public art that appears to be recycled satellite TV dishes which have been painted to represent various traditional basket designs from the local indigenous people. I am sure we missed some of them, but we got pictures of several.
We decided the drive was going well enough that we could push a little bit and make Tucumcari, which had been our original way point for today. While I drove, Steve called ahead and made sure we had a room for tonight, and we pulled in about 8:30 local time. We did have to check with the front desk to be sure we are on the right time zone. We’ve been in several the last few days, and since Arizona doesn’t observe Daylight Savings Time (though some reservation areas do) it is easy to get a bit befuddled about the time.
Today’s listening was a bit truncated by a focus on pictures, but we did manage to listen to:
Ty and That Guy Deep Dive: Princess Bride, with two of our favorite podcasters talking about the beloved classic;
Caravan of Garbage: Dick Tracy, a discussion of the 1990 Warren Beatty movie; and,
Part of Joy with Craig Ferguson and his guest, actor Diedrich Bader. We were only part way through the ‘cast when we arrived at the hotel, so we will finish that tomorrow.