Heading there, we took I-15 to Barstow, on the way to Vegas, and then took I-40 the rest of the way to Amarillo, where we pick up US-287 towards Ft. Worth. Clarendon is about an hour down 287. The Farm is on County Road W, down TX-1260, eight miles from the center of Clarendon.
Anyway...
When we left, we went down to the next Co. Rd., X, and headed west to TX-70. This took us through the beautiful canyon country. We eventually picked up the bigger TX-87, and that took us all the way to New Mexico, where it merged with US-60. We had made plans to stop in Roswell, to help Cass maybe form some real memories from this trip: let's go see where some people think aliens crashed one of their flying saucers. You know, kitschy shit.
US-60 got us to Clovis, where we switched over to US-70, and made it to Roswell by the early afternoon.
We were looking for kitschy gifts for one of Cass's friends---stuff you can only really get from roadside attractions---and eventually found something called Space Walk. For five bucks, Cass and I walked through an amusement maze, a veritable haunted house for UFO stuff. The guy let us go through as much as we wanted, and after some initial reservations, Cass was running through near the end. We picked up some alien-themed gifts and left, but not before Cass and I had blown through the maze five times.
We followed US-70 all the way to Las Cruces, in new Mexico. The plan had been different, but fires in moutinous regions of Arizona had prompted the change in plans. After crazy downpours and tiny rock slides, I blew a tire about 80 miles away from Las Cruces.
I rode the donut the rest of the way, and the next morning, day two of the drive home, we replaced the brand new tire (no warranty since road hazards are not covered) with another brand new tire and headed out.
We picked up I-10 in Las Cruces and went all the way to Phenix, where we'd planned to see both my mom and Grandma Lorraine. Along the way we decided to break up the trip with breaks so Cass could get out and move around, but also to see some of the weird shit that's everywhere along highways like this.
In New Mexico, we started seeing billboards for "The Thing?"
After about fifty of these, for hundreds of miles, by the time we saw the actual exit, it was decided that we MUST stop and see what the fuss was all about.
We bought our tickets for the "museum" (ten bucks for the 'family' deal), and entered a room. There was a photo-op, and I thought we'd been bilked for ten bucks, because I thought that this was all there was to be:
And as cool as an alien riding a dinosaur is, ten bucks seems steep for the picture. It turns out there was more. So much more...
The "Thing" itself was found at the end of the museum walk, and it was the contention of the proprietors that the Thing was proof of their historical conceit:
If you don't want to enlarge that picture and read it through, the idea is that two warring factions of aliens have been fighting over parts of earth for millions of years. One faction enslaved dinosaurs with advanced technology, another wanted to peacefully coexist. Which faction do you think they believe helped the Nazis? Which faction was on the side of the US during the Revolution? And versus the Nazis?
My question was: was it the same peaceful faction of aliens that're our allies that helped keep systemic racism in tact for all these years?
There were a lot of artifacts---cars, farm equipment, carriages---and a ton of money was dumped into the production values of the placards disseminating the literature of the theory. I mean, check out a random display:
By the time they show the Thing, after the provenance is, er, established (found by copper miners in the early years of the twentieth century), the threads of how it is supposed to be evidence for their battling-alien-factions theory are mostly lost.
Anyway, here it is:
Now, I've seen a few episodes of Bones, and I can say that while not an expert in forensic anthropology, I'd guess that this is a sand-induced mummy of a lady and her child, maybe not more than a thousand years old.
Why can't that be cool enough? Why did I think I was in a Scientology museum for the majority of the walk through? I don't think that part was necessary, but LOTS os creative energy went into the museum, and I can appreciate that.
We eventually made it to the hotel near my mom in Scottsdale, saw her for take-out dinner, and went swimming before passing out. Day two of driving home, Day Ten of being away from Long Beach, was done.
The next day our visit with Grandma Lorraine was scratched because she felt ill. Elder care facilities are all on lock down in the Phoenix area, and while we contemplated our visit (Camille had a slight fever and Cass had a phlemy cough), Lorraine made our decision for us.
By this day, we were ready to be home. Instead of two, nine or ten hour days driving, we went with three seven hour days (give or take).
This kind of experience is nearly impossible to summarize in words like this. Maybe I'm too tired or stricken by cabin fever to do it justice. Maybe the magic of a trip to the Harrison Farm is too much. Maybe the first road trip with our whole family is a certain kind of special.
Maybe its all of those things. And more.
Well...we have another one of these planned, up to the Cabin in July, so that's pretty rad. Round 2, in a few weeks.
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