This is part two of the Stained Glass Trip. You can read Part 1 here.
I love planning trips. I sometimes love planning a trip more than actually taking the trip. Planning is a way of learning, costing only time, while travelling usually costs both time and money. But for all the planning I do, usually meticulous, sometimes obsessive, I always say that every intersection is an opportunity to change plans. Today was a day that put that maxim to the test, and the result shows why I prefer planning to execution.
The day started early. Way too early. I woke up between 2 and 3 o'clock in the morning. By five I had given up on going back to sleep, so I was on the road very early. My first stop was a 24-hour convenience store about 200 yards down the road in Cloudcroft, where truly mediocre coffee was available at a not-outrageous price. Okay, it was a pretty good price, or would have been had the coffee been better, but I'm in kind of a mood now and so my instinct is to say the price was just not outrageous. I stood in the parking lot drinking my coffee and smoking a cigarette and watching the garbage truck try with limited success to empty three large dumpsters. It took several tries and the driver had to get out and pick up all the trash that missed the truck, so there was some entertainment value there. I threw away about a third of the coffee and headed down the road to my first stop, which was only about half a mile away.
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| Mexican Canyon Trestle |
tourists up so they could escape the lowland heat. On the west side of town is a remnant of that railroad, a curved trestle across Mexican Canyon. I had asked the doyenne of last night's hotel about it, and she said that it was about an hour's hike each way, and the return trip was very steep. So I decided just to go to the overlook and see it. I did that. Not really sure why it's a sight to see, but there it is: a trestle, sans rails. And I'm pretty sure the woman at the hotel has never in her entire life been there, because it's only about a 300-yard hike each way from the trailhead, and couldn't possibly take an hour each way unless you're on crutches.
Next stop was about ten miles farther down the road to Alamogordo, which drops about five thousand feet over about fifteen miles. A place called Tunnel Overlook, I suppose because it's just past the one tunnel along the road. The tunnel is nothing special; the attraction is the south-facing cliff opposite the road, which is, according to signboards at the parking area, an archaeological site used by native Americans of the Ancient Culture, or maybe the Fresnal Culture; the sign wasn't clear about that. In any case, I couldn't make heads or tails of the signage in relation to the actual cliff face, so I just read all the signs and took some pictures and moved on.
Down in the valley, I stopped for breakfast at Denny's and had their version of eggs benedict. While it was not at all authentic, it wasn't bad; and the coffee was much, much better than what I'd gotten at the convenience store. I didn't throw any of it away.
Feeling restored, I started down the highway toward Las Cruces, where I'd pick up I-10 for about 60 miles to Deming, then go back up into the higher elevations with a couple of stops in New Mexico before going into Arizona. I figured to get to around Payson today, with the high point being a view of the Mogollon Rim, which I've never seen. Fifteen miles out of Alamogordo, plans changed. The United States Air Force had the road closed. "For at least an hour," the 80-year-old MP told me. I pulled over to wait with everybody else, and checked my GPS guide. It told me that if I went back to Alamogordo and then south to a point just north of El Paso, I could be half an hour ahead of the game. So, what the hell. Drove back to Alamogordo and then south towards El Paso. About halfway down the road, Google Maps told me that Interstate 10 near the Texas-New Mexico line was now closed and the Alamogordo route was now the fastest.
Not having a paper map to consult, I pulled into a C-store to see if maybe they had one. Maybe there was another road that crossed the short distance between the highway I was heading south on, and the Interstate that headed north just a few miles away to the west. The clerk there told me the Air Force closes that highway every time they plan to test a missile. They launch a drone that tows a target, then launch a Patriot missile to bring down the target. It all takes maybe three seconds, but they close the road for at least an hour, from an abundance of caution.
Anyway: there's no other road, but now Google Maps shows the interstate is open again, so on I go. Very unpleasant drive, because the speed limit on the southward highway changes frequently, for no apparent reason, and because the connector from that highway to the interstate is a pothole testing ground. Only about five miles long, but five miles of really bad road. I'd have preferred a gravel road to that. Then up the interstate to Deming. Had lunch there, at a local burger chain known apparently for its glacial service. Oh, and let me tell you one other thing: that part of New Mexico swarms with flies. I took more than a dozen on a ride up to my next stop. (I tried to get them out, but more came in than went out.)
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| Bird of Paradise bush, maybe |
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| Rock Wren, probably |
That next stop was City of Rocks State Park. The rocks are tufa ("Kneeling Nun Tufa," according to the park's brochure, but it doesn't explain where the name comes from), a fairly soft and relatively lightweight volcanic rock. There are a number of outcrops clustered in the park, with a botanical garden near the entrance and a number of short hikes around the edges, plus one hike that goes right through the middle. I ended up spending a lot longer at this park than I'd expected to. I head for the botanical garden, because somebody I know is really into that stuff. The plants are almost all cacti that are common enough from Texas to California to Mexico, but there is one very pretty flowering plant with no label that I take a picture of (see left). Then I hike up through the middle of the park about halfway, until I encounter a Little Brown Bird that makes clear I'm not welcome in its territory. I take a picture of it, too (see right); it comes so close to me I could have reached out and touched it. I showed the pictures to the park ranger, who told me with absolutely no confidence that the plant might be a Bird of Paradise, and the bird might be a Rock Wren. I've decided to believe him.
The next planned stop is The Kneeling Nun, which Roadtrippers says is Silver City's favourite sculpture. (I suspect that it has something to do with why the local rock is called Kneeling Nun tufa.) I only put it on the trip because I wanted the route to go through Silver City, and it was either that or some bar that managed to get a listing. So I drive up to Silver City, which twenty years ago was a charming old town but now is a booming sea of suburban sprawl. My GPS took me to the center of town and told me my destination was on the right. I parked and got out at what looked like an old high school but is now a public utility office. There was no sculpture that I could see, so I opened up the Roadtrippers listing and read that it's located eighteen miles east of Silver City at a place called Santa Rita. Well.
So. On to my next stop. I realise I'm not going to get as far as Payson, thanks to the Air Force, so I'm thinking I'll be staying in Show Low tonight. The weather now is fine, so the top comes down, and I'm cruising along a nice little two-lane highway, heading northwest towards Arizona, when it starts to rain a little. I pull over and hit the button to put the top up ... and nothing happens. There's a whirring noise but no action. I get out the owner's manual and read about how to put the top up manually. I manage that chore in about 20 minutes, just in time for a gullywasher of a thunderstorm, complete with impressive displays of lightning.
I decide that I'm not going to be able to spend a week in LA without being able to put the top down or the back windows up (they're operated by the same mechanism), so I look up the nearest repair shop. It's in Scottsdale, outside of Phoenix, five hours away according to Google Maps. Okay, that'll have to do, so I start down the road, heading now for Scottsdale. After about 20 miles, I decide I should make an appointment for service for tomorrow morning (because I know I'm not going to get there before they close today). I pull over to look up the number, but there's no service. And I manage to erase the directions. I plug in the address again and set off looking for a signal. A few miles along, Google Maps kicks in, and now it tells me to turn around and go the other way. Grrrr.
The forested road it takes me down is a road that would be the perfect drive if only I could put the top down, and not have to drive in the heaviest rain I've seen since the last flood back home. The wipers can't keep up, and in my mind I know that water is pouring in through the open rear windows, and I'm driving through the forest, making hairpin turns and going up steep climbs and down steep descents all at around fifteen miles an hour because I can't see shit. Eventually the rain ends, and I finally got a phone signal and call for a service appointment for 9am tomorrow, and book a hotel in Globe, which is a little less than two hours from Scottsdale, so I'm pretty sure I can make that. And that's where I am now, in Globe, worried that it might rain again and my car is sitting outside with the windows down....
But I'm still optimistic that I can get the roof mechanism fixed and still get to LA on Wednesday. Actually, I might get there sooner, because there's not much to see along I-10 out of Phoenix. Though I still plan to head up to the San Gabriel Crest on the way across southern California. We'll see what can be salvaged, when the car is fixed. But I'm pretty sure I won't get to see the Mogollon Rim.
Oh, and by the way, the pictures from this trip are all in this gallery.
