This week, Lee and I and Anita, our Sweet-Singing guitar picker, headed up to Sonoma for our music venture with John Karsemeyer and the Rooneys. (Charles and Maureen) We met at the Rooney’s home and enjoyed a couple hours of music before sitting down to Maureen’s magnificent lunch.
After our afternoon session, we sat around and engaged in our usual talk-fest. Since the Rooneys were planning a summer trip to Louisiana, we found ourselves discussing the pros and cons of travel by freeway. Lee and I had just returned from a short, nine-day trip to the Southwest and we had been telling the others about where we had been and what we had done while away. Afterwards, I decided to modify my column for fourth Tuesday to include some of my thoughts at the time.
Actually, this is about road trips, AND about my birthday (ho hum), AND about obeying non-verbal commands from the one in the passenger seat, AND about re-visiting places you like to keep in your memory.
If a man gets too concerned about where he just has to be on a certain day or at a time, about how he has to look when he gets there, or whether or not he will be welcome, he probably can’t call himself a road-tripper. Lee and I recently completed a long road trip, partly planned in detail and partly on spur of the moment, and the happiest moments were when we decided suddenly to turn right or left, or turn around and go back a hundred miles because we find something on a map.
It’s like this. Lee had planned a road trip for me as an extension of my birthday. Her plans last year had worked out well, with our meeting up with our son Joe in Missoula, Montana and a delightful 3-day lodging directly over a rampaging river.
This year, we planned my birthday here with our number One son and other close family and then an immediate departure (we usually leave around 5 AM) for Denver, where we would celebrate again with number two son. We would spend two days with him and take him to the Denver Airport for him to begin his annual vacation (this time to Finland and beyond) (He is not yet returned).
Well and good, except for the weather. On the night before we were to leave the Sierras were still chain-required – or four wheel drive, with snow tires on all four wheels!
On departure morn, I checked – I-80 closed! I checked the major cities on our route to Denver – Nevada, Idaho, Wyoming, and Colorado. Rain was forecast for both days of our travel in every major city!
Late in the morning, we just decided to go!. We found the mountains clear, but rain slowed us all the way across Nevada. We stopped in Elko for the night, then drove in the rain through the rest of the state, through Idaho and through most of Wyoming. East of Rawlins, we encountered snow, which grew heavier, all the way to and through Laramie. Just before Cheyenne., where we were to turn South toward Denver, we said goodbye to snow, but there were no clear skies until we were approaching Denver. There, we found ourselves in sunlight, for the first time since California.
The weather was perfect for the rest of our journey.
We celebrated my birthday again – son took us out for a fine meal. we did some serious walking, and when the time came we took him to the airport. We returned and spent three days with his home as our base, before continuing south to Albuquerque.
Lee had also planned that stay. She had made a reservation at a beautiful modern hotel in Old Town Albuquerque, a couple blocks of from the historic old Hotel Albuquerque, where we will stay next time we are in Albuquerque.
Next morning, we headed west on I-40 (A road I know well; When working in Zuni, I would drive back to Monterey, where Lee was living and working) for Christmas vacations and for the summers. In 1974, most of the roads were two-lane (the old Highway 66), and even later, as sections of I-40 were being completed, I would frequently have to leave the Interstate and head off into the wilderness of two-lane America.
For a year or two, I would leave the closed sections., at Seligman, Arizona, for example…and drive through the high country, stopping only once or twice for stop or yield signs in the well-separated small town. One stop on this particular section was always in Peach Springs, Arizona, for the chilled offerings of the local Dairy Queen.
Continuing west on Highway 66, I would re-encounter I-40 at the Andy Devine exit. There, thank goodness at the time before there were fast food offerings everywhere, was, and is a “Denny’s”. Bad coffee and pretty good toast was always welcome.
Back to Albuquerque: We left early on I-40 and turned off at Grants to take NM Highway 53, which parallels I-40 and is historically significant. It is also the way to fifteen acres of land I bought in 1975 on the Continental divide, up at about 8,000 feet, while I was working in Zuni.
I had constructed a rough cabin up there, and although there will probably never be electricity available, and the only water must be either transported in or captured from snowfall, and although there are many state and federal restrictions…..it is in
lava land and is situated on the Zuni Watershed…. My acres are high up and covered in Ponderosa Pines and Pinion trees, and the air is always delicious!
When I bought the land, the only access from the highway had been a rough,-scraped trail with lots of holes and switch backs. On our day of travel through there, we found the way uphill was blocked, the area posted and access to the road was fenced and padlocked by “Owners” of the land. I would, of course, with time have gained access, but we just paused to enjoy the view, took notes and photos and moved on.
A Few miles west of there we paused at one of the major historical sites – El Morro – “Inscription Rock” National Monument. This is a low mountain/butte, upon which ancient man had scratched symbols, Native Americans had made drawings, early Spanish Explorers had recorded formal messages, and much later cowboys and other travelers had recorded personal notes to mark their passing there.
El Morro is beautifully maintained, and a trip around the place to note the interesting comments made by the ancients worth a couple of hours. I recommend that anyone traveling east or west on I-40, get off the Interstate and take this well-maintained State road through State Route 53 over State, Zuni and Navaho lands….and wave to my mountain top.
NM Highway 53 continues west toward Arizona, through the Navajo town of Ramah and the Zuni Pueblo (In Zuni, visit the original Franciscan Mission, and if you have time, stop by Saint Anthony Zuni Indian School,. There will be few Nuns there (Sisters of Saint Francis) but there will be a couple of friendly Franciscan Friars who will be happy to answer your questions. Tell them I sent you (after informing them I was the Principal from 1974 to 1980) and, if school is in session, beg the Cafeteria Cooks for some Zuni Fry Bread.
In Zuni, we visited Saint Anthony Zuni Indian School, where I had worked for six years as Principal. Although just a few Summer School students and teachers were present – and I did not know any of the teachers – when we stopped by, I re-oriented myself to my former small apartment and with the older and newer School buildings. The original buildings were of stone.
Saint Anthony Zuni Indian School is still vital, functioning as it has for many, many years, and it still depends upon donations resulting from a continuing appeals letter sent out to supporters around the world. When I was Principal there, four Zuni ladies stayed busy all day with their IBM Selectric Typewriters. when I visited the school three years ago, on a regular school day, the same ladies were busy at their Apple Computers. They looked up and said, “Hi Brady!”
After Zuni we continued west and then back to I-40 to continue the road I know so well. (I have told more than one person that I could plan a drive from San Francisco to Tulsa, Oklahoma, and predict with an hour where I would be at any given time.)
At Barstow – the end of I-40, we take California 58 through the Tehachapi Mountains and ultimately, to Bakersfield. Where we hit cross the dreaded California 99, once the major north/south highway though the state…and still a very busy road. From that moment (and this is a warning to those planning a similar trip) travel becomes unpleasant on Highway 58 for the twenty miles through the western half of Bakersfield to Interstate 5 at the Buttonwillow exit.
Although I-5 traffic is heavy and monster trucks abound, it also leads to I-580 and home. But before I-580, there is a welcome interruption – an exit and short journey to visit our Grand Daughter and two Great Grandsons in Newman.
Arriving home, we find all our newspapers were stacked against our front door (don’t worry – the area is out of sight from the street) by our great neighbors, and we return to the business of living in the City.
Road Trips, 1953
I don’t get to change no tires no more
nor find a jack nor ask what’s that for
when it shows up in secret spaces
placed by last year’s Christmas Presents.
My car don’t boil and bubble steam
and leave me ‘longside distant trails –
it never fails to get me there in style.
And while you digest that, why keep me
safe and warm or cool as I wish to be,,
when in the day I paid with frozen toes,
always chose to sweat when sweat was there..
Lifting hoods and pouring oil, so fine I cry,
in rain at night, I put those little cares aside.
Why sit as in my living room, I often say;
when I can wait alone beside my Chevrolet.
– Charles Brady
