Our scheduled drive for Friday is from Dallas, Texas to Tucumcari, New Mexico, pulling a u-haul trailer. Out of an abundance of caution, we’ve scheduled 7 hour driving days, anticipating a slightly slower pace due to the trailer.
Driving from Dallas to Albuquerque would be just a little too far when you average in rest and bathroom and gas stops and potty walks for the dog.
I’ve driven through Tucumcari many times, always marveling at the large mountain rising out of the land with the big T on it. The roadway cuts the corner bending to the northeast toward Lawrence, Kansas or to the West to Albuquerque, depending on which way one is traveling. But I’ve never stayed in Tucumcari.
Do you have any experience in New Mexico? I’d love to know your stories.
New Mexico grit is under my fingernails from 5 years living in the blowing dust many years ago when I earned my masters degree. I developed a taste for green chiles and New Mexico cuisine. Five or six years ago, I took a Spring Break trip from San Diego to Albuquerque and back, reminiscing about the the food. In three days, I ate at the Frontier Restaurant six times. Memory tends to change the details of the fabric of existence, especially with items such as foods, a taste for which changes with time. But like some long buried time capsule, I was pleasantly surprised that the food at the Frontier restaurant was exactly as I remembered it, exactly what I desired at that time.
I have many stories from my time in New Mexico. The one that makes an appearance in my memoir is about Louis Owens, the professor who started me on my path to teaching and who first introduced me to The Waste Land. He was my mentor in a way, though he rejected me coming to New Mexico. He was a leading Steinbeck scholar and a well-respected Native American novelist. Later, after I left New Mexico for Kansas, we lost track of each other, though, arranged by the poet Luci Tapahanso who I knew in both New Mexico and Lawrence, Kansas, I did ferry Louis around Lawrence for a visit where he read at KU and at Haskell Indian Nations University from his latest work.
When I moved to San Diego and was trying to get back in touch with my fading literary and academic roots, I got in touch with my office mate from my UNM days, who told me that Louis had committed suicide. This was two years after the fact, and two years before my brother. Coming as it did in my own consciousness after my brother’s death, it was almost like a double whammy for me. It was one of the great losses in my life as I reckoned with my new life away from teaching and scholarship.
I’ve traveled through New Mexico once since that Spring Break trip, on a trip from Santa Cruz to Atlanta. We stopped then for food at Frontier restaurant and to visit a friend briefly. We plan to eat there again on this trip. We also have a lunch set up with a friend. We will only be stopping for lunch in Albuquerque, as our trip will take us from Tucumcari to Flagstaff that day.
I’ll check in from the road.
Until then, I’ll . . .
Just keep driving!