(Quarter Horse History, The Subject of Produce, and Heading Out Into the Storm)
Well well... we got up this morning, not too exhausted but definitely not fresh, either of us. We got checked out and said goodbye to the Airport Ritz, got in the truck and went to the Quarter Horse Museum. I don't think there's too much to say there - Quarter horses as a subject of history could not fill twenty pages, which translates into "there's not much with which to fill a museum". They had an outdoor arena, which implies that, on better weather days, there might be demonstrations, and that would have been fun to watch. As it was, we wandered around a sparse photo gallery - some nice artistic works but only the work of one artist, and a lot of bare space on the walls that could have been filled up a bit better. Elise got some tokens to use on the supermarket-style mechanical horses, which she really enjoyed, and there was a horse skeleton upstairs, unfortunately tucked away behind glass with a printing over it of a complete horse, so we couldn't get too much from that. There was a spot in the racing exhibit where you could climb on the back of a fake horse in a starting gate - three horses, two to sit on with a "jockey" on the horse in the middle so you could get the feel of things. Elise enjoyed that a lot, and pretended she was racing her pony Rusty...
We left with the wind blowing ferociously and I for one couldn't get George's warning out of my head: "I'm glad you're leaving when you are - we're supposed to have some interesting weather this weekend."
Brrrrr... it was not a comfortable feeling, looking up at the black clouds and fighting our way through the wind to the relative security of the new and untried Inny. The truck is huge and heavy and it was nice to shut the door on Elise, safely buckled into her seat, but I couldn't help but think about how incredibly screwed we would be if Inny died on the road. We had something like 1400 miles to travel, and I was really hoping just about then that George the salesman had been as honest as I had hoped he was. I had asked a lot of questions of diesel mechanics and relatives in the know (thanks, John, for letting me bend your ear for hours!), and from what I had learned, I was reasonably certain I had made a great buy, but still, looking up at the sky in Amarillo and watching the tops of the trees bend like toys in the wind, I had reason to fall back on my faith, and to frankly kick myself for giving in to the temptation to bring Elise...
Nothing for it. We went through a drive-thru and headed out of town. Which, oddly enough, brings me to produce.
A word here on produce. Produce, you ask? What the hell has produce got to do with anything?
I'm glad you asked. Most of you who read this will be from California, and you likely may never have experienced what it's like to live in a non-produce state. Texas is just such a place: there are cattle ranches so that you can't hardly spit but you knock into twelve of them, and everybody drives a truck with cowshit on it (well, okay, that's a stretch, but everybody DOES drive a truck - okay, ALMOST everybody). However, try to find a fresh orange. I speak from experience. While we were at Kmart, I decided to pick up some fresh fruit for snacks from the grocery store section.
What an education! Oranges the size of golf balls, blemishes all over them, and the sign said "JUMBO ORANGES, .73 CENTS EACH"! Oh my... Here in California, "jumbo oranges" are generally those oranges that are grapefruit sized or larger. Here they grow cows the size of Mack trucks, but their fruit...
Funny thought: In California, the fruits are larger than life. In Texas, it's the bull... (All deference to my gay friends.)
Anyway, heads of lettuce all brown and weird, nectarines hard and sour and nasty, no cucumbers, no jicama...
Calfornians live in a state where you can grow just about anything. Growing things is so much a part of life here that Jeff and I recently visited a plant nursery where one could buy a merlot grape plant! I was so tempted, but I'd have wanted it for table grapes and I'm not sure how tasty the merlot grape is as a table grape. My friend Ellen's kids recently discovered that they have a grape plant, red seedless, I believe, growing in their back yard! Those were some tasty grapes! Just about every house has an orange tree, and you can turn the tiniest scrap of back yard into a vegetable garden.
And in Texas, you can't even get a decent tomato on your hamburger, which is what made me think of all this. We went through a BurgerKing drive-thru, and my Whopper with cheese had a few tiny shreds of lettuce and one sad tomato slice. It was just about the grossest thing I ate all trip...
Okay, so we headed out of town. I had originally thought we'd stop in Santa Fe for the night, but then I really looked at the map and realized that Santa Fe was out of our way. Don't know why I didn't see it before. Elise was a good girl, and a great traveler, but she did get bored. At one point, she called me to look at her. I started to say that I couldn't look away from the road or I'd crash, but I glanced in the rear view mirror as I said this, to see she'd put a diaper on her head like a hat - not a real diaper, but her nightpants, so don't worry. I busted up, and took pictures by aiming the camera blindly over my shoulder. Just goes to show what happens when a smart kid gets bored.
We stopped once, at a truck stop called Cline's Corners, where we had a snack and I let Elise out to run around a bit. You'll see the pictures of her running around the truck, and at one point, she announced that she had to tell Inny a secret, so she went up to his hood and whispered to him. You'll also see a picture of some wildflower - I don't know what it was, but it was very pretty.
Note for those who haven't traveled through the Southwest: remember the song "Route 66"? Well, it's called hwy 40 now... but still, I was humming the song just about the whole trip, and you know what, it was actually helpful! I kept reminding myself what city was coming up next!
"You see Amarillo, Gallup, New Mexico... Flagstaff, Arizona, Don't forget Winona, Kingman, Barstow, San Bernadino..."
Well, we got off before San Bernadino, but the rest fit just fine.
Anyway, after talking to Jeff, I decided to keep going for Gallup. We got there kind of late, and plunked down in a decent hotel - as it turns out, mere minutes before the whole rest of the world descended on the place, so we were lucky that we got one of the last rooms.
Now, Elise had been such a great kid all day long, but here's where I should have paid better attention, because she tossed and turned all night long, which isn't normal for her.
From Amarillo, TX to Gallup, NM: 425 Miles
The Quarter Horse Museum: http://www.aqha.com/foundation/museum
Tomorrow, the Third World Life of the Modern Native American
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