DAY TWO - DUTY CALLS

San Angelo, Texas - March 16, 2014

I was so pleased with myself that I failed to realize that while the air conditioner hummed away and the wind gentle rocked me to sleep that the temperature was dropping like a stone.  I woke up freezing.  During the night the temperature in west Texas dropped from 80 when I arrive to 53 degrees.  Not too bad – unless you have the ac blasting all night as well.  It had to have been below zero in this aluminum shell.  I stumbled out of bed with no robe and in the dark tried to figure out how to turn off the ac.  With my teeth chattering it was all I could do to jump back into bed and cover up.  I must have dozed off for a while because when I next opened my eyes the sun was up, the wind was still howling and it was still damn cold in the Airstream.  That’s OK.  I can warm up with a nice hot shower. 

When the water did not warm up immediately it dawned on me that maybe there was some procedure I was missing.  Something to do with propane.  Propane was becoming the ban of my existence. I was too cold to care.  No shave and shower this morning.  I would be pretty ripe by this evening but I had no one to impress so I threw on my black t-shirt, blue jeans and started to get ready to depart.

I did manage to get the Mr. Coffee running but there was no breakfast for me.  (I did polish off the popcorn I didn’t finish last night but that hardly qualifies as breakfast.)  You’d think without shaving, showering and no breakfast I would be on the road in no time.  Being a novice, it took my forever to get everything straightened up.  I did not want to make a dumb mistake hooking up the Airstream.  I feared either crushing my foot under the electric hitch jack that raises and lowers the trailer so it can be put on the tow ball of the truck or have the trailer go careening off the road somewhere because I forgot some pin or latch or whatever.  The hitch is a sinister object. I am certain to the mechanically inclined it is a simple machine but to me it looks like a cross between Darth Vader and a booby-trap.  

The hitch.  My lifeline.

It is a serious looking device connecting one heavy object to another, which will soon be rocketing down the Instate at 65 miles per hour.  Not something to be taken lightly.  By the time I was finished with the heavy duty stuff, then making certain that everything was “stowed” and that nothing would be dragging behind me when I left it was all of 10:30.  I had no particular place to go.  I told my LA daughter, Kat that I was taking my sweet time, so rather than hurry off I turned the truck towards Fort Concho.

Fort Concho is right in the middle of San Angelo, Texas.  San Angelo is a city of 100,000 people that time has plainly forgotten.  The city was founded when the Fort Concho was built in 1867.  The fort was built to protect settlers from the Comanches.   In your minds eye you probably see an Indian fort as this wooden structure surrounded by a high fence made of spiked timbers.  Fort Concho is a series of adobe buildings constructed around a central square.  No need for a high wooden fence.  These Comanches weren’t fools.  They were about to attack a fort with a couple of hundred soldiers walking around. 

Why drive all the way to Fort Concho?  Force of habit.  When I was a kid my father took me and my two brothers to every battlefield on the east coast.  Fort McHenry, Antietam, Gettysburg – we saw them all.  He instilled in us a love of history.  When I moved to Texas I started to learn about the Comanches.  From television (secondary only to movies and rock & roll as a source of information) I always thought that the Apaches and Sioux were the tough Indians.  Of course, I always thought that the forts were made out of wood surrounded by spiked timber fences.  Rin Tin Tin did us no favors when it came to historical accuracy. 

Taming the West - according to 1950's TV.

Moving to Texas I learned about Comanches and how they were never really beaten by our boys in blue.  Don’t believe me.  Get your hands on Empire of the Summer Moon: Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanches, the Most Powerful Indian Tribe in American History by S. C. Gywnne.  The Comanches didn’t mess around.  The expansion of the American West actually went around an area called Comancheria in what is now Texas, New Mexico Oklahoma and Kansas. 

No one messed with the Comanches

To protect settlers a series of forts were built at the edge of the Comancheria.  One of the best preserved is Fort Concho. So, to start my adventure what better place to start than Fort Concho.

Living large in Fort Concho

Officers Quarters

Moving on down the road I came to the determination that I would point the airstream towards Carlsbad Canyon – an easy 275 mile drive.  I can get there, look around and then figure out where to go next, until the phone ran.

It was Kat, alternatively known as Katie, Katherine Mary or Gatto depending upon mood and lifestage.  She was the one I was headed to visit.  She told me that she had to head to New York for business on Friday and was wondering when I was getting to Venice Beach where she lives.   I told her maybe Thursday or Friday.  She said, “That’s too bad.  I wanted to spend more time with you.  I’m feeling kind of guilty.” 

After I hung up I drove along – following what ever my Iphone told me (Apple again!)  Not twenty minutes after hanging up I came across two disturbing things in Big Springs, Texas.  The first was a sign that read Fort Worth – 250 miles.  The second was a sign that read I-20 to El Paso.  I drove 250 miles yesterday.  This morning I had driven 85 miles and was no closer to California than I was yesterday.  This is a reoccurring problem with me when I road trip.  For me it is the journey not the destination.  When Kat graduated from college we took a road trip after I had finished a job in California.  We had a great time, staying off the Interstates and visiting all the great places (Yosemite, Sequoia National Forest, Death Valley, Bryce National Park) but after a month when we still hadn’t left California Kat began to worry if we were ever going to make it.

Now, I saw these two signs and the fact that my daughter wanted to see me when suddenly Carlsbad Carvens lost its appeal.  I turned, in the right direction and headed towards El Paso pronto.  I mean who cares about finding yourself or running away from your problems or seeing some cave when your daughter needs you.  Old habits are hard to break.  After spending your life raising, caring about and enjoying your kids, running about discovering yourself can’t compare spending an extra day with your kids.

So off I roared down I-20 to I-10 and El Paso.  To many people this is the most boring drive in America but I love it.  West Texas is a unique place.  The landscape is flat and desolate.   The only tree are the mesquite which are hardly trees at all.  But it’s powerful country.  Not for the faint of heart. The twin oil towns of Midland and Odessa stretch along I-20.  The wind was still blowing to the point where the sky was brown with dust.  I am certain there are nice parts of both towns but they are not along the interstate.  What catches your eye is the fields along the highway which at first glance look like cotton fields after a harvest.  At closer examination you realize the bushes have shred of plastic bags stuck in them that have blown there today, this month, forever.  So many pieces of plastic bags with a half life that will outlast me littering the sides of the road for twenty miles.  So many they will never be picked up, even if there was someone to pick them up. A unintended consequence of progress? An attempt to save trees or save money?   It’s the most notable feature of these two towns and no one seems to notice.  Yes, Odessa and Midland are hardscrabble towns.  I wonder how Barbara Bush ever handled it.

Further along down I-20 and as it merges with I-10 the dominant feature is the never ending trains.  The tracks of the Union Pacific run along the highway.  I guess they are headed to Fort Worth’s huge railhead to the east and somewhere in California to the west and no doubt stretching all the way to China somehow. The impressive thing is that they are continual; hauling stacks of shipping containers, what looks like cattle cars, flatbeds with military vehicles – long endless trains going in both directions.  What baffles me is don’t most train tracks just have one track?  They usually aren’t set up like a highway except for commuter trains.  These tracks must be two-way or someone is working overtime switching them. 

The Endless Train of West Texas

The interstate is different from the other highways of America.  They were designed to be away from towns so you don’t get to see anything of the towns I saw yesterday like San Angelo, Ballenger, Winters and Tuscola.  What you do get to see is the vast countryside, those endless trains and your fellow travelers.  Maybe its because I bought the Airstream but I noticed for the first time there seem to be three travelers on the road.  The first is the regular travelers – people in their SUV’s, caompact cars and vans.  You see them at Love’s – a lot.

The there are the Trucks.  So many trucks – delivering America its goods.   I got a great piece of advice from Rick Luhr who works for Airstream Life and wrote a book entitled, “The Newbies Guide to Airstreaming.”  The book was invaluable for me but one thing he said stuck with me – go slow then “pick a lane and stick with it.”  That’s the right lane for me.  But when you do slow down the first thing you acquire is a new regard for truck drivers.  What I am hauling is nothing next to the average semi and these guys do it day in, day out.  You rarely see them speeding.  They slow down, pick a lane and stay with it.  Once you do that you settle in to a zen like appreciation for the journey rather than a rush to the destination.  The third may have been around for a while but it is the first time I noticed it.  That’s the legends of motorhomes.  No Airstreams here.  These are immense, expensive self contained homes on wheels.  It looks like Toby Keith on tour.  More than often these giant vehicles are towing a conventional car.  These beasts are serious machines running hundreds of thousands of dollars.  Who are these people?  A blue collar movement I missed?  Are these fellow Baby Boomers?   Is this a trend I have missed?    You see them all over the road. 

These guys are everywhere

I drove along pondering these musings when suddenly down the interstate coming towards me was, do my eyes deceive me? -  another Airstream.  All theses miles for two days and I had yet to see another Airstream.  I am told, by Mr. Luhr’s book and through my pre-purchase due diligence that Airstream owners are an exclusive fraternity, holding a common bond that the folks in these giant motorhomes just can’t understand.  As I approach him, both of us going 65 miles an hour, I instinctively reach for my turn signal and flash my lights.  Instantaneously he acknowledges the salute by returning the gesture.  I’m in the club!

This warms my heart until a beep sounds on my dashboard.  I looked down and notice that in my haste to join Kat in California the warning flashes that I have 50 miles to go before I run out of gas!  I am in the middle of the west Texas desert.  I am maybe 120 miles from El Paso.  I have purposefully not checked my gas mileage fearing the worse.  Normally, my Ford F-150 gets 19 miles per gallon, which I always told myself was not bad.  Now, driving between Pecos, Texas and El Paso in what can only be the middle of nowhere I push the button that tells me my current miles per gallon – 12.9.  Yikes.  I feel both guilty for the gas guzzling and a little bit frightened.  Fortunately, appearing on the horizon is the roadside town of Van Horn, Texas.  I am saved.  I pull into the Love’s – of course – and fill up.  Feeling very self-satisfied now I rely once again on Apple and type into the maps app – Van Horn, Texas propane.  Up pops n Exxon station not mile down the road which sells propane.  Steak on the grill tonight.  I feel like a true road warrior until I pull into the Exxon and hit with another truism I did not know until this trip.  No propane sales in Van Horn on Sunday.  I drift back to the road to El Paso – on to Las Cruses, New Mexico and another trip to Walmart and frozen dinner.  This time I forsake Marie Callendar and go for the Stouffer’s Spaghetti and Meat Balls.  I choose a private RV park right off the Interstate with the idea that I will get up in the morning and have a hot shower.  Only time will tell.

Another trip to Walmart

One thing I did accomplished.   I knocked off 450 miles today and am 300 miles closer to Venice Beach than Carlsbad Caverns.  Maybe next trip.