Tuesday, March 17, 1998 - Trip to Albuquerque

Actually, the date on this letter is wrong; it should read ‘March 18’, because it is 2:00 a.m. But it still feels like Tuesday, so that’s what I typed.

We’ve just arrived home from a trip to Albuquerque, where we delivered a pickup to a Mexican man who owns a dealership called “All Trucks”.

Larry, after working day and night to complete the big crewcab in order to drive it and pull the 48-foot slant trailer, finally gave up. There was just too much left to do, and he was getting much too tired. Besides, he also had to make sure the pickup we were selling was in good running order, and that took a good deal of time, too.

So we used a new flatbed trailer he’d just purchased, and pulled it behind the Suburban. The pickup was a big one, and with all of our belongings--to say nothing of the humans, themselves--our Suburban was rather loaded down, a bit saggy on the rear. And off we went.

We left Friday, the thirteenth, at about 2:30 p.m. Larry didn’t sleep a wink Thursday night, so, as you can imagine, he was really tired. The fact is, he was trying to nap and drive at the same time before we ever reached Grand Island!

I yelped and hollered and punched and poked him until he made it through the city; then, fifteen miles south, in Hastings, he turned the wheel over to me. I drove almost all the rest of the way to Raton, New Mexico, arriving at 4:30 a.m. Saturday morning.

During the night, I saw quite a variety of wildlife: bobcat, skunk (I drove cautiously past that one), deer--both whitetail and mule, and raccoon. All the way from Benkelman, Nebraska, to Raton, New Mexico, the roads were bumpy and hilly and curvy, there was no shoulder; and it was very windy. It was hard driving in such a wind; the pickup on the car trailer was causing the Suburban to sway, partly from the weight, and partly because the windshield was out, which catches a lot of wind. By the time we got to Raton, my shoulders and neck were tired and sore.

Late Saturday morning, after not nearly a long enough time to sleep, we groggily tumbled out of bed and headed for Albuquerque. The littles were bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, having slept a good deal of the night away. We didn’t call Larry’s Aunt Lynn, who lives in Raton, because we needed to get that pickup to the man in Albuquerque, and Aunt Lynn would wonder why we needed to rush off without coming to see her first.

We enjoyed meeting the Mexican man and his family. The wife spoke little English, but the daughter translated for us when we couldn’t understand each other, and so we had a nice conversation. In any case, friendliness crosses all language barriers, si? The lady told me she came from a family with ten children, five boys and five girls. So our big family didn’t look unusual at all, to her.

We were hoping to go to Taos and through the mountains to the west; but the Suburban slowed all the way down to 15 mph over Raton Pass, so we thought we’d better not risk those steep mountain passes. Instead, we took the interstate. We returned the same way, because it was already dark, and we wouldn’t’ve been able to see the sights anyway; and heaven knows we need those 24-hour rest areas and truck stops along the way.

We went in a souvenir shop just north of Albuquerque, and the children all got themselves a memento with money given them by Mama especially for that purpose: beaded belts, sparkly pens with pictures on them, rocks and geodes, arrowheads, a beanbag Indian doll (for Victoria), and . . . postcards--for me, of course.

During the return trip, most of which I drove while Larry slept, I saw a wild boar in the middle of the interstate, the first time I’d ever seen one.

Sunday morning we called Aunt Lynn, who was altogether surprised to discover we were right there in Raton, not a mile away! We stopped at a grocery store to buy all the food we would need to fix dinner (we’d brought quite a bit, but needed some fruit, yogurt for the dressing, and spices for the soup). I tell you, the prices were totally outrageous! Some things were more than twice the price of the same item in Columbus.

Anyway, while I was in the grocery store with several of the children, Larry, with a couple others, took the Suburban off to a car wash and made it look purty again. Arriving at Aunt Lynn’s at about noon, we fixed beef/potato/vegetable soup, fruit salad with wild blueberry yogurt, and chocolate/peanut butter/butterscotch chip cookies. Dorcas and Hannah made the cookies. That grocery store hadn’t even stocked Nestles Crunch pieces or Heath Brickle, two of the major necessities of baking!

Aunt Lynn made yummy raisin bars, and gave me the recipe, since we all liked them so well.

That afternoon, Ralph Bryan, an elderly man whom Aunt Lorraine used to care for and who had seen us at Grandma Jackson’s funeral and taken a shine to us, called to talk to me.

Aunt Lynn called Uncle Earl and Aunt Lois, and Uncle Bill and Aunt Lorraine, to tell them we were there and to see if they wanted to come see us; but Earl and Lois had cows calving right and left and couldn’t leave them, and Bill and Lorraine said they didn’t have enough money to buy the gas to come. Aunt Lorraine’s medical bills have made things rough for them, it seems; and now she can’t work, either.

Well, that made me feel sorry for them, so we packed up the leftovers (and there were plenty) and, after a quick trip to K-Mart for a decent pillow (for poor old me) (the motel provides bricks), we all, including Aunt Lynn, headed for Gladstone. The aunts and uncles live about ten miles from this little town, on ranches on opposite sides of the highway. We went to Lois and Earl’s, and Lorraine and Bill came there to visit and eat supper with us.

But it wasn’t as easy as it sounds.

You see, some time in the afternoon, it started raining, and it kept at it all evening and night. So the country road to Uncle Earl’s house was nothing but wet clay and slime.

Mercy. It was awful. There were deep ditches on each side of the road where the road grader had pulled the dirt up onto the road, making it extremely humped in the middle, which made it even harder to stay in the center of the road. We slipped and slid and skidded one way and then the other, constantly threatening to slide right into the ditch.

And then we’d see a cattle guard up ahead--a cattle guard that was positioned high atop a steep rise in the road--a cattle guard that looked to be about three feet wide, whilst our lovely Suburban was all of nine feet wide, sliding sideways as it was.

But do you know what happened, each and every time we arrived at one of those guards? I’ll tell you: the Suburban miraculously straightened out and squirted through, its pretty teal and metallic sand sides unscathed.

I told Larry that the only reason it went through like that was because the terrified occupants all gasped in unison, which sucked the sides in and made it skinny enough to fit.

Finally, we spotted Uncle Earl’s spread up ahead through the darkness and rain, and it seemed like it took an endless amount of time to travel the distance to the driveway, which was to the right. Just before we got to it, the Suburban began skidding uncontrollably to the left. There was no stopping it. Fortunately, there was no deep ditch at that particular location; but there was a two-and-a-half-foot bank. We thudded hard against it. That jarred us back toward the road, and we found ourselves pointed straight at Uncle Earl’s drive. Larry steered into it, and we slipped and slid along until we at last reached the house, where we managed to get stopped before we hit the fence.

I thought sure the left side of our Suburban would be severely damaged; but, amazingly enough, we couldn’t find a single scratch or dent. It took a good long while, however, before my hands stopped shaking and my heart started beating regularly again.

The whole while we were in Uncle Earl and Aunt Lois’ house, I could hear the rain pouring down, and I knew that hideous road was getting worse, and worse, and worse . . . . .

But I’ll have to say, Larry didn’t win all those motorcycle and dirt-bike trophies for nothing. I tell you, if it had’ve been me driving that Suburban, I’d slowed to a petrified stop in the road, whereupon we would’ve slithered right on over into one of those roadside gullies, and there we would’ve been then, stuck until the next ten-year drought came along. And probably not right-side-up while we waited for it to come, either.

Anyway, we did have an enjoyable visit, in spite of the difficulties. And, on the way back, Uncle Bill led us through the pasture for part of the drive, so we didn’t have to contend with that awful road for so far.

Nevertheless, I informed Larry that he’d’ve never made it safely, had he been all by himself; for then he would’ve had only one guardian angel; whereas, with all of the rest of us along, there were no less than twelve of them.

Yes, I’ll take Nebraska’s ice and snow any day, as opposed to that.

After taking Aunt Lynn to her house, we returned to our motel--the third time we would sleep there, and only having to pay for two nights, since we’d arrived so near morning Saturday. The rooms we stayed in had a strange odor, and sometimes it would get so bad it was hard to stomach. We left the windows open, in spite of the coolness of the weather, both Saturday and Sunday while we were gone, and by the time we returned, the room smelled good again. But shortly after coming back into the room, and as soon as everybody started showering and taking baths, the stench would return. It smelled remarkably like wet, disposable diapers, so, for the first little while, Victoria found herself getting changed unnecessarily often.

We eventually figured it out: there was fresh paint around the bathroom heat lamp, and every time we turned on the lamp, the whole room reeked something fierce. I think somebody made a mistake with that paint. Wrong paint, wrong location.

After spending the greater portion of the day Monday at Aunt Lynn’s, with Larry milking the goat, me playing the piano, and all of us singing (not necessarily all of that at the same time), we left at 5:30 p.m. It had been snowing on Raton Pass, and the trees were really pretty. Fog covered the mountain tops.

We took a short excursion through Trinidad to look at Larry’s old haunts, and then continued on to Colorado Springs, where we got a suite in the Super 8 Motel.

And now, since I’m about to fall asleep on my word processor, I’m going to close......

To be continued!