20.) Mediocrity at the State Line.....Inside the Desert....Drifting and Hygiene.....

I thought crossing the state line into New Mexico and out of Texas would be miraculous.  Another lame metaphor for leaving all the garbage behind, beginning anew.  Truth is, I almost missed the whole damn thing.  I was right, there was no line, no apparent change in color or even landscape. It was really a non event.  Just a sign in the desert by the side of a desolate highway and I'm disappointed in the mediocrity.  Then it starts to hit me. Your out, you never have to go back there.  Out for good.  This trip is legitimate now. crossing state lines…its for real.  And New Mexico! Never been here before. Gaing steam. I’m excited again.

 

      I spend the day at Carlsbad Caverns just over the state line.  You hear about them and you’re kinda just like.... yeah big cave…cool....whatever.  But to actually see them, to explore INSIDE the desert is remarkable.  I hiked nearly two full miles under ground in a constant 56 degrees  through stadium sized caverns with vaulted dome ceilings. I’m in awe of the enormity of this place.  Theres a food court inside this cave……Amazement followed shortly by a heavy depression and the sound of my forehead falling into the palm of my hand.....The exploitation is incredible. The simple volume of this place....the amount of space it takes up.....is ridiculous... and I'm staring at the golden arches....*sigh* The only thing i can do to make myself feel better is order a 20 piece McNugget (c) meal and call it a day.  I shake my head in disbelief.....When I hear the phrase "super size it?"...I instinctively start to nod and proceed to the second window.....      

Back above ground I wander around the little museum and learn that 100,000 tons of guano, basically bat shit…was mined out of the caves over the years.  Over 40 feet deep in places. I assume it was used for fuel of some kind but I’m not sure.  Outside I follow the “Old Guano Road Trail” to a shaft that was dug to make guano extraction much easier.  It’s all fenced off and it’s  basically just a hole in the ground but you can see all the way back into the caverns. The ground I’m standing on now seems less reliable. I look out at the expanse of nothingness leading back into Texas and nod in agreement. I point the jeep away from it and toward Roswell, New Mexico.  
 The jeep could use a cleaning and an oil change as I pull into Roswell.  It looks like any other moderately sized dessert town except for the abundance of ufo and alien paraphernalia everywhere.  They really run with it, even the Mcdonalds is shaped like a ufo.  I find a quick lube oil change place with a car wash attached.  Three weeks worth of desert has attached itself to the jeep in a thick film and a wash is just the refresher it needs.  I could use a refresher myself.  The desert has attached itself to me as well.  I saw a few campgrounds on my way into town, surely one of those has some shower facilities I could use.  As he rings me up, I ask the man behind the counter if he knows a place in town where I could have a shower.  He’s a tea kettle boiling on the stovetop.  Positively charged and brimming with energy.  Never coming to a complete stop, he seems to be running the entire operation by himself.  A dusty baseball cap sits atop his bald head, five o'clock shadow out in full force despite it being early afternoon.


“Shower huh?!” His volume matches his energy.  He makes that face people make when they mentally picturing the days to-do list, his index finger unconsciously ticking off items in the air.  “Gimmie…..uuuhhhhhhhh, 10 minuets.  Wait right here” and he scurries out the back door.  I see him through the big picture windows in the front of the office, trot across the parking lot and into the garage where my oil was changed. A few minuets later he trots back in, grabs some keys off a hook behind the counter, and point to a white pick up truck outside.  “I gotta drop that truck off down the street. Just follow me and I’ll take you to a shower you can use” and he’s out the door before I can respond. I jump in the jeep and whip onto the road behind him figuring he’s leading me to one of the campgrounds but we come to a stop in a driveway.  He parks the truck and kills the engine. He's across the driveway, and in my jeep’s passenger seat before I know it and already talking.  “That truck stays here.  You can shower at my house and then give me a lift back to the garage.”
“Are you fuckin serious?! That’s awesome, thanks man!”  I can’t believe it and I’m slightly weirded out by the offer but this trip is about saying yes and I’m getting pretty ripe at this point.  
“Don’t worry about it, it fuckin sucks not having a shower…Matt” he says, extending his hand and directing me through a neighborhood and into the driveway of a beautiful, mansion-like home.  Into the house, through a large den with a big screen TV in the front and a bar in the back.  Boxes litter the bar top while more are congregated in a corner and in front of the TV.  Not the nice packed up and sealed moving type boxes;  most are open on the top filled with a mishmash of unrelated clutter that seems to have been just tossed in without much thought.  It’s apparent that this room hasn't been used in some time.  I follow Matt across another living room with a leather sofa and a matching recliner.  Built into the center of the opposite wall is a desk flanked on either side by overflowing bookshelves.  No time to gawk though, Matt is moving fast. Around a corner and up stairs into a bedroom. Sliding Glass doors look out onto a small balcony with a spiral staircase leading down into the backyard. A huge patio, complete with in-ground pool and hot tub takes up most of the space. Across the pool and up against the fence is a professional grade propane barbecue with marble counter tops on either side.  “Showers in here.”  I’m startled out of a daydream about me, steaks, and that barbecue when Matt says it.  
“Right!” I say, shaking my head back to the present, “Sweet…”  I turn the corner into the bathroom and the shower is one of those glass room deals with multiple shower heads.  Marble floors and ornate fixtures on the vanity. “Whoa.”
“Go ahead and wash yourself. Ima go make a sandwich then you can drive me back to the shop,” is all Matt says as he throws a towel at me.  By the time I catch it I already hear him clomping down the stairs.  
After three weeks of camping in the desert a shower is magical.  Even more so when taken in a bathroom resembling that of a hedonistic glutton king.  I wish I could have spent days in there, but Matt was cool enough to let me use the thing so I didn’t want to keep him waiting if he had to get back to work.  I compliment his house and thank him profusely as I drop him back at his shop.  “No sweat dude,” he says waving his hand in a don’t-mention-it gesture. After he asks where I’m staying and I admit that I haven't really thought about it yet, probably sleep in the car at Wal-mart, he says “Come back at 6 when I get out.  I got 4 fuckin beds in that place that no one’s using, you can have a whole room to yourself.” 

“Kick ass dude! Thanks! I just might take you up on that” but he’s already gone.

19.) Other Lives....Co-Pilots...."The Most Beautiful Place In Texas"....

     It never fails does it? After you have a stellar day complete with fresh air, accomplishment, and a vague sense of pride something happens to knock you back to earth.  My fall was delivered in the form of flashing red and blue lights in my rearview.  The second I saw them my eyes dropped to the speedometer but I knew I was speeding before they even got there.  At this same moment I became conscious of the fact that I was traveling downhill which would only aid me in breaking the posted speed limit.  *sigh* “Shit..” quietly to myself, but still out loud and pull over.

The officer walks to the passenger side window so he isn’t standing in the middle of the highway while we converse.  The first thing I notice is that he’s probably the most handsome man in history. Like, distractingly so.  I’ll admit that it’s a weird thing for me to notice but I maintain that this man was operating at a level of handsome so out of the realm that this would have been the first thing ANYONE would notice about him.  Even the super manly, sleeveless flannel kinda lesbians would have noticed and been momentarily thrown by it. Given each other a little nod and a raise of the eyebrows....humph, good looking dude.
  He proceeds to tell me that I was speeding and I admit that yes, it got away from me a little coming down that hill there.  He then informs me that my passenger side tail light is out.  What the fuck?! I just replaced it! Wait, no, I just replaced the driver side one….now the other ones out? Is that a weird coincidence or does that sort of make sense? Both of them going out around the same time. It doesn't matter really, and I prepare myself for a ticket after venting my frustrations with taillight replacement to the officer.  To my surprise he lets me off with a warning and a promise to fix the light as soon as humanly possible.  I believe I’ve mentioned this before but I had been pulled over a month or so previously when the other taillight had gone out.  This was in Houston, Texas before I left on my trip.  THAT officer was waiting in a parking lot across the street from a bar where I played darts.  When I left he had followed me more than halfway home and finally he pulled me over.  I had go through a whole field sobriety test. The line walking, the nose touching, the one foot standing.  I passed them all and afterwards the officer hands me a ticket for 130 dollars, says your driver side taillight is out and walks away.  The moral of the story is that cops in Houston are way more douchey than border patrol officers in the middle of the west Texas desert.  

The closest congregation of people is the liberally named Dell “City”, population 413 or so says the  green, sun faded sign on the outskirts of town.  Just a few low buildings on an indiscriminate stretch of highway.  A school, a post office, a gas station….that's Dell City.  The kids probably dream of escaping; and for a moment I wonder where they go in their dreams. Theres nothing visible in any direction, just desert and mountains; so I think,  "Wherever they go, it’s a long way off". I receive a package from, and send a postcard to, another life.  A life that’s not too distant chronologically but still seems a million miles away. In the package I get some new cd’s which is perfect, (all my cd’s are buried somewhere in the bowls of the jeep) and a small stuffed penguin wearing a flower lei. He is quickly dubbed Aloha Penguin. His friends call him A.P. And he becomes my co-pilot from here on out. He’s a fine soldier and he never abandons his post. 

Luckily, the Dell City gas station is also a NAPA so I’m able to find a spare bulb for my taillight inside and replace the old one right in the parking lot outside. You don’t realize how often a problem can be solved by a set of needle nose pliers or a socket wrench.  A simple tool box is one of life’s essentials.  With new lights on the outside and new music on the inside I point the jeep back towards the park and spend the next few days on the trails. 

    
      I follow a wash into a valley and over boulders to Devil’s Hall.  Again with the massive power of water. The hall itself is a narrow passage created by water eating its way through the soft rock layers. Each layer is visible making the canyon walls resemble miniature staircases. It’s an attractive place despite the name; made even more welcoming by the absence of people.  I haven’t seen one other person on this entire hike.  The solitude is relaxing. I lay back on a rock to sun myself and simply enjoy. 

 

Later I hike into Mcklintick Canyon all the way to Pratt Cabin.  Mr. Pratt called this canyon “the most beautiful spot in Texas” and it’s easy to see why. Even now, in mid March while most foliage is still dead or dormant and with the area slowly recovering from a major flood years ago it’s still gorgeous.  Peeking through the spaces between the trees are ridges climbing upward on both sides and the sky a perfect blue. In full bloom it must be just incredible. The thought solidifies itself as a deer bounds along the edge of the secluded clearing and into the forest beyond.  I admire the cabin and a few out buildings all made entirely of stone, even the roof.  I cup my hands around my face to peer in through the windows. It’s simple and secluded and seems like a wonderful place to settle down.  I do just that, in a chair on the front porch with a book.  We forget how pleasant it can be to sit in a pretty place and just be. It’s magic.  

I’m deeply entranced in my book when a flying, buzzing insect of some type slams full speed into the pages just inches from my face. The spell is broken and I look around the canyon glad that no ones around to witness how high I jumped. On the hike back my mind wanders. The trip is beginning to congeal, to become an actual thing with a tone and personality.  The further I go the more convinced I become that this trip was the EXACT right thing to do. I’ve hiked over 40 miles now and I’m feeling better physically, I already seem to have more energy.  It’s early to bed  and rising with the sun and I’m enjoying all of it. Soon I’ll cross my first state line and be finished with Texas for good.