Finally, the good stuff!

The last chunk-o highway was a lot like Mississippi. Less hills. More cows. I feel like we are being taken over by cows. On one hand it seems like a lot of cows. On the other hand, cows mean land for grazing and when you need land for grazing there is no developing taking place. That means silence and loneliness. Two things I cherish. Now I know what you are thinking: “What is she talking about? She never stops talking.” And it’s true. I don’t. When I am driving I am either singing at the tops of my lungs, chit chatting with James, texting, talking on the phone or on those rare moments where my lips aren’t making ruckus noise, I am chewing out the insides of my mouth. I’m high strung, what can I say? However, I love silence and large expanses of grass and bovine create calm solitude like nothing else. It's really helping me get to know me. The emotions I am feeling are stronger and better than the ones I was plagued with back in town. Maybe tomorrow I will focus on taking a close up of a cow for moo.

Other than cows and grass, what have I noticed? Good question. Not much. But the little I did see, I’ll share with you. The first thing I would like to mention are the billboards. Some of them are outright hysterical. I think they are anyway. One of them is a red flag for someone like me (with my big mouth that never shuts up and has a slight problem with mocking and the likes). It has a picture of a coffin with flowers on the top of it. It reads: He beat her 150 times. She only got flowers once. I couldn’t believe it. That was in AL. Figures. Those people were angry x 100. Another one talked about Reversal Vasectomy Surgery. That was in OK. Figures. I swear they have more cows than people. And then there are the religious ones. Everywhere. I am once again brushing up on the fact that Jesus not only loves me but he also saves. Oh yeah, and he wants me on his team today. Because I am a good leader. Maybe I should start taking pictures of billboards since they not only break up the cows but they keep me laughing and thinking. Oh yeah, speaking of Jesus… there are churches everywhere you look. The only time you don’t see churches is when you are stuck in the middle of cow land. Although even then they crop up here and there. But once you are in town (or what they call a town) there are at least three churches near by. What I want to know is who is going to the other two or three churches? I mean, I’ve seen about two houses and yet here are three or four churches. I don’t get it but I am glad they are available to save the souls of heathens. That’s for sure.

While driving along I saw two interesting things. The first was a sign letting me know there was an overlook coming. You know how up in NH they’ll put a place where you can pull your onto so you can view the beautiful mountains without getting killed or committing suicide? I thought it was going to be one of them. No such luck. It overlooked nothing. Well, maybe not nothing. It looked onto the highway and if you looked in the other directions you saw where the trees met the lawn. Yup. Then I came across a sign talking about the Boston Scenic Loop. Since I know where Boston is, I didn’t believe this one for a second. I skipped it. Since doing further research I wonder if maybe I should have gone that way as it was the Boston Mountains and it sounds beautiful… Nah, then I wouldn’t have made it this far today. And that was most important to me as the good stuff starts soon soon soon.

Indian country is a little disturbing. Mostly due to the fact that there is mockery when concerning Indians no matter where you look. I wonder how the Navajo people feel about that. At least they mark the Indian territory so you know when you are there? I wonder if that bothers them too? We take their land by massacre and then hang billboards about Navajo trinkets at the next exit. Ha ha.

Everything flattened out last night right before it got dark. It’s incredible how far you can see around here. I saw Amarillo from about 10 miles away. Yeah, it was dark and it was basically the only thing lit up but still.

I drove into Santa Fe, NM today (Sunday). I ended up getting here by a different route than was planned and it was totally worth it. It went through nothing. Absolutely nothing but cows. No reception, very little traffic and the big huge sky. I was going to get a close up of a cow for moo. When I hopped out of the truck I realized the cows looked close to the highway as there was no gate holding them in. I know cows are supposedly docile creatures and I have never heard of anyone being savaged by one (rodeos and bullfighting don’t count, as they are bulls being provoked big time), but I was in no mans land and cows are big. And they were just staring at me. I bailed. I’m going to find some with a fence between us today. Here’s a question. When you have 43,000 acres of land with a bunch of cows roaming all over the place, how do you find the cows when it’s killing time? Are those tags on their ears little GPS units? Oh right, directly after seeing the cows I passed a herd of Antelops. They were just sort of chilling out chewing their cud. Very cool.

Once in Santa Fe (the unmarked route worked out) I checked into a hotel and got started on what I wanted to see. I like history. I like old. The visitors guide helped me with that. First things first I took James to the the Frank Ortiz off leash dog park. He had a good time and we met some dogs to play with. It was a good sized place with trails to walk and benches to rest on. Then we drove into town and parked the truck and walked about the Plaza area first. We saw Burro Alley which was once a “rowdy saloon and gambling area”. It was named for the burrows that carried the firewood to be sold there. We also saw the Cathedral Basilica of Saint Francis of Assisi and it was as beautiful as they said it would be. Then we went to see the The Cross of the Martyrs. That was very cool. It was a staircase leading up to a large cross at the top. Along the stairs there were plaques with information about the history of NM. All of these things are on my Flickr account. If you look at the sets you’ll see they are grouped by places I have visited. I thought it might make the whole thing easier. I also like to organize things. I also need things to do.

Sometimes this trip is tough. I am not used to being with myself like this. I was always running about before and had things to do for others. Now I am alone and trying to figure out what I want with no distraction is not as easy as I thought it would be. I’m sure it’s going to get easier. For now, I have a dog park to go to.