Day 28: New Mexico

Espanola

From Durango I drove east until I dropped into New Mexico. I have not seen this part of New Mexico in the daylight and it’s pretty, especially now with the Aspen trees showing their fall colors.  I was heading towards Taos, but as I drove through the town of Espanola, I remembered a story from 1979.

Six of us from school decided to do spring break on the gulf coast of Texas, it’s only a little over 1,000 miles and gas is 70 cents a gallon, why wouldn’t we? We were young and dumb.  We first stopped in Center Colorado to get my roommate, Marks’ 1959 Pontiac, complete with tail fins and studded snow tires. We made to Port Aransas and camped on the beach for a week. On the way home, it’s was about 2am when we pulled over in Espanola for gas.  We always changed drivers when we needed gas.  A car of local guys pulled up on the other side of the pumps. Not sure if was the car, or Six guys from Colorado that got their attention, but they started questioning what we were doing there and where we were going.  After giving them no information, we got back in the car. Mark paid for gas, and when he got back in, he said the cashier told him to watch out for “those guys” they were trouble. As soon as we pulled out, the driver of the other car slammed it into reverse and attempted to cut us off. Fortunately for us, an unsuspecting motorists had pulled up behind the other car and they ran into him hard.  Mike was driving and he floored that Pontiac down the highway.  We looked back and it appeared the other car was speeding off in the other direction.  After about 30 seconds Mike said: “hey guys, did we cross a divided highway to get to that gas station?” The last driver, said yes and then we saw the headlights coming at us.  Mike flashed his lights and maneuvered through oncoming traffic, until he found a place to cross over. With the head start we got we never got caught by those guys. If not for that poor unsuspecting motorist and our inadvertent drive down the wrong way, who knows what would have happened.

Today I had a more uneventful fill up in Espanola and I drove to Los Alamos to see where there once was “more brainpower per capita” than any other city in the Country. There is a museum, Bradbury Science Museum, where you can learn about the development of the atomic bomb. It was closed because of Covid but I got to see the town where it happened.  

From there I headed to Taos for the night, it’s got a great ski area 18 miles out of town, that I probably won’t see tomorrow, but the town looks nice.

Songs of the Day: Rocky Mtn Way, Joe Walsh (For Colorado) Get your Kicks on Route 66, Asleep at the Wheel (because it mentions New Mexico) No time to be Sober, Uncle Kracker (because of the Covid news)

Podcast: The Habitat: Today about group dynamics, when 6 people are locked in a small space for a year.

Book on Tape:  Started The Reckoning, John Grisham (Preparation for when I hit Mississippi)

Beer of the Day:  Desert Fog, Marble Brewery

Total Miles: 280