It’s after 11 p.m. TX time & we’re only now in our Taos B&B.
So much to see and eat as we cruised across two states. Already Amarillo feels like a week ago.
That’s because, for both of us, today was lovely. For different reasons.
For Ellen, Santa Fe buzzed with memory and possibility.
For Melanie, Taos reconfirmed where home is.
More details manana after we reach our third state in three days. Of course, who knows what state we’ll really be in…
Our writing retreat — led by the magnificent and incomparable Max Regan — begins tomorrow night. And that’s the real reason we RoadBroads hit the highway in the first place!
Since I’m writing this post on my cell phone (& I’m cranky & tired), only one trip pic tonight:
Can you identify what this photo is? Hint: it’s deep, it’s wet, and it flows.
We made it! Our first day on the road is a success! Melanie and I arrived all the way to Amarillo after only 10 hours of driving (following 4 hours of sleep).
Sam Houston guided us by pointing the way north from Huntsville and our journey heated up!
The weather was good, if not warm, and the traffic, tolerable. I don’t even mind that the temperature reached into the upper 90s, the humidity is very low here compared to the Texas Gulf Coast. Tomorrow the temperatures will be even cooler and I cannot wait!
Melanie did all of the driving today while I co-piloted with the use of a AAA Trip Tik. Loved the turn-by-turn directions. Really helpful when driving in and out of road construction that seems to plague every conceivable road and highway in Texas. Counted 14 cops running radar from Houston to Fort Worth. Funny how all the police disappeared in Cowtown. We could have used their help in navigating the worst road construction since TXDot started ripping apart the Gulf Freeway.
One of our first stops on the road turned out to be a Stuckey’s. I remember taking family vacations many years ago and we stopped at many Stuckey’s along the road. This is the first one I have seen in a really long time. Now this fine establishment is famous for fudge and sausages. I did not sample either.
Then while driving down the road, we passed many wind farms. I have never seen one up close before. I was amazed at how big the fan blades on the wind turbines are (I hope that is what you call them) and pleasantly surprised at how many wind farms there are in this part of Texas.
We drove through Memphis. Having grown up in Memphis, Tennessee, I found this quite entertaining. No, it does not take much to excite me during a 10-hour car ride. Memphis, Texas is much smaller than Memphis, Tennessee. We drove through it pretty quickly.
Finally we reached Amarillo and stopped for the night. And, of course, nothing says “Lone Star State” like the Big Texan Steak Ranch. The deal here is that you can get a 72 ounce steak for free if you can eat the steak and all the trimmings within an hour. Yes, there are people who really take this challenge and succeed. Being a vegetarian myself, I munched on a salad, sweet potato, roll and iced tea.
No one took the challenge while we were there, but Melanie and I did get serenaded by some fine Cowboys. They sang The Yellow Rose of Texas.
Day one successfully completed. Now time for a long sleep before heading out for more adventures tomorrow in Santa Fe and Taos.
In 8 hours and 15 minutes — yes, I’m counting — I must leave my house. Ellen expects me at her doorstep at 6:15 a‑m. Wake-up for me comes one hour before.
At least it’s a makeup free drive. We agreed.
I digress.
A nine-hour-plus drive to Amarillo dictates our early departure. Land after 6:30 a‑m on any Bayou City roadway, especially US 59 heading to I‑45, and the asphalt clogs up. RoadBroads don’t do slow.
I digress again. My apologies. Look up there at the trashy picture. Can you figure out what’s not yet done?
But wait. Turn around, leave this room, look to your right. You’ll spot three piles of dirty laundry. Head down the hall, you’ll find an unfinished stack of June-due bill payments. In the kitchen rests a week of RoadBroad blog papers to sort and file. Intensifying the growing overwhelm is the June family calendar: two birthdays followed by Father’s Day times four.
All awaiting these diminishing overnight hours, and this blog post.
At least, Mother Nature cooperates. Boulder weather shows 88 degree highs and 56 degree lows. Amarillo temps for tomorrow mirror Houston, less the coastal humidity. From my childhood I remember the dry heat of the Texas Panhandle. Translation? Manana, even in an air-conditioned car, demands less. Tank top and shorts. Less equals cooler. For this post-menopausal chauffeur and her human cargo, cool matters. As in non-negotiable.
This begs what may be my salvation tonight. Hot weather means fewer clothes equals less to pack. Or should I pack more outfits because wet and sweaty demands dry and cool?
When did I get too old for this kind of silliness? Mind mania has set in, my god.
My brain hurts. I’m tired. And I’ve got miles of things to finish before I sleep. I can’t pull a Scarlett, either. Tonight and Ellen dictate action and completion. So off I go to take care of all the silly busywork a 19-day RoadBroads adventure demands. Who knows when it’s lights out for me tonight. Besides, I’ll probably go all “journey proud,” as my grandmother used to say, and not sleep a wink.
We’ll see. Instead, I’ll leave you with what I saw on my morning walk.
The trio of deer lolled in the Full Moon morning, the sun insisting this day belonged to the animals.
Can you find the three deer?
I hope to observe similar vistas in the road days ahead. Amarillo or Santa Fe or Taos or Denver or Boulder.
In advance of this weekend’s kickoff of the summer vacation season, Bloomberg published a glorious photo essay of what it called “the-10-best-global-road-trips-to-try-this-summer.”
My reaction came fast and hard: go local, not global.
Think of all the things you can see right where you are. Or within a few miles from where you live. Or after a few days on the road.
This time next week, Ellen and I will have driven across the cityscapes of Houston and Dallas on into the rural grasslands and canyonlands of Texas before driving high into New Mexico’s mountain lands then leveling out over Colorado’s dry grasslands, ending two straight days on the road in the flatirons of Boulder.
That’s 16 hours of a one-way trip only two days from home.
From the coast lands to the mountains, we’ll see beauty everywhere. Because we’re looking. Really looking. And that’s the point this Memorial Day weekend, the kick-off of the summer vacation season.
Look where you travel.
Look local.
Of course, this comes from the RoadBroad who wrote in her bio that she’s determined to spend the night on all seven continents.
As an old newsman I adore told me once, “never let the facts get in the way of a good story.”
Start a blog for the road trip part of your Colorado writing retreat. Then use your earned knowledge and skills for the later novel road trip.
After a lifetime as a hired writer for others’ words, I’m shoulder-deep in my first novel. It’s a classic journey story about a woman who hits the road to reconnect with old college friends. She finds them — and, of course, herself — along the way.
I’ve been working on this novel for nearly 11 years now. Here’s a sampling of what’s accumulated:
Two of five piles: more eek! Eek! Here’s h‑a-l‑f the jump drives that contain my WIP.
And that’s only part of it. Real Life got in the way. During one five-year period, my extended family experienced a hospitalization or a funeral, on average, every three months. Non-stop. Did I mention that 14 of those hospitalizations involved me and my brain?
Writing fell victim to healing. Despite the lengthy interruption and massive accumulation, I return to writing with a goal of novel completion this year. The plan includes this blog in that strategy.
Learn how to blog on a road trip. Make this fun. Keep it relaxed, and easy. As relaxed and easy as WordPress can be.
Write like a fiend. Remember, everything on the road is a potential blog post, be it words, photos, or video.
Report like a wise version of the reporter you used to be. Seek the unique in whatever form it manifests.
Observe, observe, observe.
Demonstrate what a founding member of the RoadBroads does. Prove it can be done.
This blog came to life, courtesy Ellen, who prefers road travel to soaring skyward. She suggested driving to a Colorado-based writing retreat in June, 2018.
Melanie answered with two words, one of which can be repeated in mixed company. Young children, however, would probably be confused. C’est le vie—it wouldn’t be the first time either of us has been misunderstood.
Post-writing retreat, we contemplated life sans RoadBroads. Should we continue this blog? We both proclaimed a loud two-word answer, identical to Melanie’s reply to Ellen’s initial query. Amazing what happens when two women writers get to know each other on the road.
We’ve dialed back the blogging to one post each per week. Periodically, we’ll post a guest blogger—another woman writer, on the road—reporting some kind of trip and what she’s learned.
We can all learn from each other.
Looking forward to the lessons offered via observations, discoveries, and experiences. The good. The bad. The ugly. Adventure is all this, most especially the ugly.
It’s only roadtrips. With two broads and some special guests.
