Thru the Peephole: Musings on the Strange, Interesting, and Maddening Characters We Meet “On the Road”
By Allan Gereg of St. Clairsville, Ohio.
Chapter 5: New Mexico Weather Report—“Damp” Today, “Hot Tamale”
In the last episode, I rambled on about Martians in St. Louis, and “killer” grandmas and Mondo Bizzario Bands… (wait a minute… was that in this column… or was that my latest Jewel to the National Enquirer?). Anyway, we were headed to the Land of Enchantment after we managed to free ourselves from the clutches of the Madmen of St. Louis. We traveled soutwest thru Missouri and eastern Oklahoma. Wow! what a Bee-You-Tee-Full country eastern OK is! I was completely surprised by the green grass, rolling hills and the abundance of crystal blue lakes… I bet it’s an Outdoorsman’s Paradise! I always imagined all of OK as being dry, flat, windy, dusty prairie… just like we found west of OK City… just outside the city everything seemed to change. It was like Shangri-La in reverse!… We Done Left the Best Behind! But, I guess there’s something to say for dry, hot, windy, dusty prairie… two million Gophers and Jack Rabbits love it!
It was at an El Reno gas station where we met another Interesting (or Strange?) Character. We’d just gotten out of OK City and got a tastes of the prairie… especially the incesssant winds. There was such a strong, steady wind blowing from the southwest that we had to lean our bikes into the wind constantly as we rode. We pulled up to the open gas pumps needing a fill-up, and here comes Goober Pyle’s cousin (… had to be!) to help us… his greasy John Deere ballcap was pulled down tight on his head, which made his jug ears seem more like Howdy Doody’s. The afternoon sunlight glinted brightly off the chain for his trucker’s wallet as he jingled to us. I could certainly see why he had his cap pulled so far down… if the wind caught that baby, it’d fly 39 miles before it hit the ground! We asked… or yelled… for a fill-up, and he dutifully handed me the nozzle. The wind was blowing so hard, whistling thru the gas pumps so loudly that you couldn’t hear yourself… think! I yelled across the pumps to Goob, “Wind blow like this very often?”… He said, “Naw, hit ain’t thet bad t’day… Shoot, you orta be here in the winter. thet’s when it blows purty wicket!” Sheeeesh, I Guess!
We continued West, leaning into the wind like Grand Prix riders frozen in a sweeper. Doug and I both feel that our front tires show excessive wear on one side due to this riding position. Finally, we came to the end of our day and stopped at Tucumcari… how could you not?…the brainwashing and subliminal suggestion you get from the thousands of Tucumcari Tonight? billboards almost force you (like a Zombie hunting George Romero!) to stop. So, we pulled into the Palomino Motel and got a great room for a cheap price… the desk clerk (and owner?) was telling us how he feared this tourist season… Gasoline was taking a horrible rise… very nearly $1.00 a gallon! The desk fella figured that nobody would want to travel far if they had to pay those prices, so they’d stay closer to home… and Tucumcari, like most places out West ain’t near much of anything! The money we saved on the motel was quickly used up at a local bar… It was Dry and Dusty Work, Partner! I had my first taste of Coors and Olympia–good tasting beer, but at this point, Iron City or P.O.C. would’ve done the trick!
After a restful sleep, we continued the tour… we were gettin’ into the good stuff!… We visited Billy the Kid’s Grave, the White Sands, and headed south to Carlsbad and the Caverns… quite a spectacle… wonderous passages and formations… and always 55 degrees or so–natural A/C! I think we missed the Bat Flight… every dusk 68 million bats fly out of this hole in the ground (all bats work “night shift”, you know, yuk,yuk!) But, we didn’t miss the Bat Guano, though… it was deposited in cone-shaped piles over the cave floor… so much had accumulated over the years that men became rich selling it for fertilizer! After leaving the cool cave, we trekked on thru southwest NM, stopping at one of the few BMW dealers we had seen in the state, in Las Cruces… Doug had a new rear tire mounted… that’s just the kinda guy he is… Safety First!
We weren’t very far from “Old Mexico”, and the weather showed it… It was Hot! Hot! Hot! (dry heat or not… we just “baked” instead of “broiled”). We rode mile after mile on those scorching New Mexico roads; finally in the afternoon, we stopped for a late lunch… we saw a sign calling us to Authentic Mexican Food, pulled in the parking lot and dismounted… Whoops!… I almost fell over, weak-kneed and light-headed! I didn’t realize how that Ole’ Sun sapped the juice right out of me!… stopped just in time… inside the cool and dark restaurant (a local jobbie’no franchise) we sat, gettin’ cool and waitin’ for our dinners… plates of Beef Tacos and Tamales!… They were, by far, the best Tacos I ever ate!… and as good as the Tacos were… didn’t touch the Fire Power of the Tamales… think of a bucket of burning tar… in a volcano… on the surface of the sun… that comes close! I must have drunk 2 gallons of Coke to wash down The Fire Down Under!
Rejuvinated and fortified, we pressed north towards Albequ… Albuqwe… Albuck… Sante Fe. The heat remained fierce all afternoon; by 5:30 or 6:00, we were ready to stop… and no campground tonight… A/C, TV, hell, even a vibratin’ bed was what I needed! The cold shower felt good… I could feel my skin absorbing the moisture that was pulled by that parching sun. Refreshed, I sat to listen to the local weatherman… to tell me just how baking hot it would get tomorrow. He gave us the “lowdown”… Tomorrow's high temperatures will reach the mid-90’s… and The Extremely High Humidity will also continue for the next few days.(?!??)
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Evidently, the humidity level reached all the way to 15% !!… huh?… Back home at Camp Swampy, 15% would be Heaven, aye? It just goes to show you… it’s all in what you're used to… but, no matter what, it’s great to see (and feel) the difference… and what better way to do it… on two wheels, naturally!
