Back home: reflections on a journey across the southwest USA

 

Well, we're home at last.  The past 24 hours have been spent on five or six loads of laundry;  unpacking and putting away luggage, clothes and what have you;  dealing with ten days' worth of mail;  persuading suspicious cats that no, just because we're picking up a suitcase doesn't mean we're leaving again - "Look, you can watch us put it on a shelf!";  and generally decompressing.  Well over 2,000 miles and almost 40 hours on the road catches up with an older back a lot faster than it did when I was younger . . .

Nevertheless, it was a good trip.  We met a new friend in meatspace, Larry Lambert, after having known him for years in the blogosphere, which made the trip worthwhile in itself.  He's quite the character, and we now understand why Old NFO told us we had to meet him.  The 20 Books to 50K Convention in Las Vegas was informative and interesting;  not fun so much as educational.  I concentrated on the business side of writing, and learned a lot about organizing my time, how to use some of the modern aids and tools for publishing that are out there, and how other successful author-publishers are making it work.  Over the next month or two I'm going to be reorganizing my work process and trying to formalize it, because without that sort of focus one is merely tinkering at it - and I need to do much better than tinker if I want to earn my daily bread at it.

Several things we saw impressed me.  The long, long railway trains we saw in Arizona and New Mexico were pretty amazing.  We're used to mile-long trains here in northern Texas, perhaps a bit longer, but out there two-mile-plus trains are not unusual:  containers, coal trucks, and mixed freight.  I tried to work out their length by using the odometer as we passed them, and allowing for differences in speed.  I think the longest we saw must have been two and a half miles long, all coal trucks, with multiple engines moving it along at about 40 mph.  I suppose, by the time they reach our little town, they've been broken down into shorter trains for ease of management on our more congested railway lines.

Miss D. and I commented to each other on the relative lack of hawks, eagles, buzzards, etc. along the highway in Arizona and New Mexico.  We were wondering whether that's because of the ongoing drought there, which may have killed off a lot of the small animals (mice, voles, raccoons, skunks, etc.) on which these raptors feed.  We've noticed a reduction in the number of such birds in our area as the drought bit harder this year.  It's the only reason we can think of to explain it, and it would tie in with the relatively few bodies of dead animals we saw along the side of the road there.  We're used to many more of them in our part of the world.  If anyone knows a better explanation, please tell us in Comments.

The colors of the landscape in northern New Mexico and Arizona are sometimes amazing, ranging from pink, through various shades of brown, to an almost bleached-white stone.  We understand now how the "painted desert" got its name.  We didn't have time to visit the petrified forest in Arizona, but we did make it to the meteor crater there, and were sobered at the thought of what that impact must have been like for whatever was living there at the time.  Sadly, I suspect we'll need a bigger one to clean up Washington DC . . .

We had relatively few close calls on the highway.  There were a couple of lane-changing issues with semi's, who don't seem willing to give way to anything smaller than themselves, and/or want to move into our lane whether we've made room for them or not;  but fortunately there were no unwanted contacts.  The scariest moment was encountering two steers/bulls near Claude, Texas, who escaped their enclosure and charged towards the highway, stopping with their front hooves on the shoulder.  I hit the anchors pretty hard (hard enough to make me want to check my brake shoes at the dealer this week, to see if I wore them down).  Fortunately everyone was able to avoid a nasty accident.  The semi a few vehicles behind us locked up his tires under braking, producing lots of white smoke and noise, so I suspect he'll have several flat spots on his tires that may need attention.  Heartfelt thanks to all of you who said a prayer for us for traveling safety.  We needed them!

We were both happy to get home at last.  We enjoy traveling together, but home is where the heart is - and our cats, too.  They greeted us with mingled joy and irritation, because it's our fault they were "abandoned".  Our neighbors across the street were also happy to see us, because we buy free-range eggs from them, and in our absence they hadn't managed to find other buyers for them:  so Monday afternoon I collected nine dozen eggs!  I'll have to do a big share-out among our friends over the next few days, otherwise Miss D. and I will be sprouting pin-feathers from all the egg dishes we'll be eating.

Onward!

Peter