Well… I’m sad to report we did NOT stay in Roswell with the ET’s. We were making too good of time and blasted right on through. Mostly I’m sad because that’s also where we left civilization. We should have stopped there for dinner but we weren’t hungry. Instead, we continued on to Artesia, NM and ate at what appeared to be the only open restaurant in town: La Fonda. We were in and out in a matter of 30 minutes, gobbling chips and salsa (decent), a carne asada burrito (decent — tho, since we expected it to be newborn-baby-sized like most burritos these days are, we split it. It was not newborn-baby-sized so neither of us was very full, which was FINE. Dave declared the margarita was NOT decent. Much to my dismay, he only drank half of it. Oh yeah— and he also got CARDED!
And we were back on the road.
Holy cats! The Permian Basin of southwest New Mexico and west Texas is no April Fool’s joke. I truly think it must have to be seen to be believed. Hour after hour of driving past nothing but natural gas wells, oil drilling, semi after semi hauling endless loads of ??, water tank stations, zigzags of electrical poles, refineries, massive clusters of microgrids (an oxymoron, i know…) — all as far as the eye can see. I’m embarrassed to admit I have never even heard of the Permian Basin (Dave was agog). Certainly I know about Texas oil country…Maybe “Permian Basin” is the Latin term for it…?
When I IMAGINED what oil country looked like, it was NOT like this. I guess I’ve only seen pockets of oil drilling using old One-Arm Bandits. The situation we are driving through now is totally unlike those bucolic little oil pets. I would describe it as the dystopian version. I’d maybe even say it’s the SIXTH Circle of Hell. Or maybe I’d even shift the Eagle post office to the sixth circle and move this area the seventh… And that’s saying something.
I know I’m being extra hard on Texas right now, but I am honestly a bit shell-shocked. I realize “someone’s gotta do it” and that my whining is comparable to an omnivore complaining about hunters and thinking it’s ghastly — I do heat my house and I do drive a car, so… I am a hypocrite. I hate being a hypocrite, so I will work on my attitude.
In other exciting news, we also played our annual “Let’s see if we can make it to the gas station game!” Always a crowd pleaser.
We did. (Make it to the gas station. Twice. This was the first picture. The second time it was even worse.)
And the fridge continues to work, so that’s good.
So, back to the trip an my job as navigator…
… well, let me just segue to one tiny detail from earlier in the day. Dave asked me to drive so he could do some reading before making a call. OF COURSE I WAS FINE WITH THIS (in case any of you dare to assume otherwise). However, DAVE thinks that when HE’S in the passenger seat, it’s all just rainbows and unicorns. “Time off”, so to speak. As such, he eschewed his navigation responsibilities — while I on was on the phone with my MOTHER, no less! Which caused a brief flaring of tempers when the route did something unpredictable and he was annoyed by my annoyance — and where it was established that Dave “hates it” when I “scream” and I “hate it” when he makes “dismissive gestures” and “false claims”.
That out of the way, I resumed my call with my mother and he resumed reading. In earlier Road Warrior Days, as my kids can attest, this would have resulted in a 2 day standoff (on my part, to be clear). So, yeah, I’m a big girl now. A solid teenager, emotionally…
Back to my navigator duties — which i take very seriously, in case you didn’t notice. MY job, after dinner, was to find a place to sleep. No, this isn’t a campground situation. This is a free, not-far-off-the-highway, no-chance-of-getting-in-trouble, preferably-quiet situation. Which is a lot harder to achieve than you might imagine. Especially in the Permian Basin.
Red Bluff Dam Park.
1.5 hours beyond Artesia. Inside Texas boundary — putting us in the Central Time Zone, so 10:30pm — 4 miles from the highway… on a reservoir… free camping…
PERFECT!
I mean it was… and it really really wasn’t. It was pitch black out so we wouldn’t really get the full effect until morning. And neither will you.