Where the deer and the antelope play!!

The rest of today was incredible (all the pictures are on Flickr due to my incredible laziness). James ran about the dog park in Santa Fe again this morning. I remembered my camera! YES! Some serious lizard hunting took place until his body told him how hot it was out and then we just wandered about the trails sharing a bottle of water. If I loosen the cap enough it becomes a dripping dog bottle. He’s getting great at sucking on the cap for liquid, let me tell you. Everyone in Santa Fe seemed nice enough. It’s strange how no one in Santa Fe is from NM. Everyone I met has the same story: I got sick of where I was and moved to Santa Fe. As much as it seems like a great little town I don’t think I would want to live there because it’s almost as expensive as Boston. What is the point of that? I am *in love* with the little town of Elderado. It’s not on the map but I love it anyway. It’s about 15-20 minutes out of Santa Fe and it looks peaceful. Also, the adobes were super nice.

I took route 25 south to route 285 south to get to Roswell. I passed by The NM Girls Ranch and thought about stopping in to say hi but their driveway looked about 50 miles long and who knows if they’re all bitches? Onward!! I also passed by Encino NM. Can you believe that is a place I have heard of? Yeah, me either but it’s all true. I’m glad I passed through it because they were advertising breakfast for $.99. Can you stand it??? I didn’t stop as it was well past breakfast hour but it’s good to know there is still breakfast out there that costs less than a buck. Vaughn, NM was way cute. There was a store advertising “I buy rocks and stuff”. Do you have any idea how rich I could be there considering how many rocks I can fit in the back of my truck? Cha ching!! I can see living there when I don’t need to do anything but see beautiful scenery and the highway out my living room window. Yup, the highway cuts right through all these tiny places. Maybe I’ll retire at one of those places and just sell rocks to the locals? Who knows. For now I am going to keep looking this country over. Oh yeah, we’re alien land bound!!! Good old Roswell. Can I get abducted? That's the real question. I’m going to give it a go tonight once it gets dark. The way I see it is, if cows can, I bet I have a chance. Speaking of which, I never got that picture! None of the cows were next to the highway today oddly enough. There was this one group but it was mooving right along and I didn’t have a rope on me so… OH! I did however get a picture of ANTELOPES!!! Yup, that’s right me and my super camera skills. I saw some grazing at the top of a steep hill. I pulled over and got all National Geographic on their asses. I snuck up the hill and got their picture right before they all made a run for it. Check out the one staring at me. That is a look of total disbelief. Ha! I was asking one of the locals how I could get a better shot of one and he told me about antelope fishing. Lucky for me I have my rods with me so I stopped at the bait and tackle shop and got the best antelope bait they had. I was clued in that finding the right spot is key because you don’t want them to see you or they won’t take the bait. I set up shop at the base of a hill and after securing James in a shady spot nearby let my bait fly. It took a while but the waiting paid off because no kidding I suddenly felt a little pull at my line. Being a master fisherman I know that you never budge for a nibble, you want to set that hook deep. I was tense but stone still. Then there was that true yank l was waiting for and I heaved back with all my might. Sure enough I had hooked one! The fight was on! He was a big one! We battled for about an hour straight. I would let the line loose to wear him out and then pull him back in once he seemed weary enough to do so. Man, I’ll tell you, it was the fight of my life! I was getting tired but he wasn’t giving an inch so we raged on without respite. The whole time James was struggling and yelling to get off his cable to try and help! How I wish I had simply leashed him next to me! I bet he could have helped me bring that bad boy down!! Sadly, I only have a 15# line and it gave out near the end. He ran off to freedom and I was left to repair my broken line and mourn the loss of my hook. Bastard. I’ll try again when I find another good setting to do so. They're smart so you can't go to the same place twice. I have a bunch of bait left and my line is repaired so we’re good to go. (In case anyone actually believes this bullshit I just want to say HA HA!! Hey! I have an idea! Lets go antelope fishing!! Ah hahahahahaha!!!)

I also got some excellent storm clouds. Let me know if you tire of the storm clouds because it’s pretty clear I’m not going to eh? For once I like nature!! I drove through THE MOST INSANE STORM TODAY!!! I saw it coming, believe me. I saw it coming from like 30 miles away. That is no exaggeration. It was massive. There are two parts of my brain. One of them says things like, Joy, that’s a huge storm, we shouldn’t drive into it. The other part says things like, don’t be a pussy Higgins there is no going back anyway!! The latter was correct as there are only two ways to go. The next 70 miles to Roswell or back the other 70 to Vaughn. Well, I guess there is a third option which would be the ranch driveways but they are all dirt roads going *nowhere*. This leaves me no option but to drive into the storm right? And I’m no pussy right? RIGHT!! The best part of seeing these storms has to be the lightening. I am used to seeing a flash, but when the land is this wide open and flat you see it when it starts and when it ends. I was watching it snake out of the sky and blast into the earth over and over. The lightening that stayed in the sky was awesome. It cut through the clouds like huge hands. Wild. When we hit the rain it got flat out scary. It was pounding on the truck like hammers. And the wind was so strong it was trying to push me right off the highway. It was also making this neat whistle sound as it went under the truck, kind of like when you blow across the top of a half full bottle. The windshield wipers were having a tough time coming back down. It was incredible. I was reminded to keep my eye on the road for flash floods and they really come in a flash. You want to notice where the water flows through the land so you don’t get caught if it comes across the highway. Basically, they’re so fast that by the time you see them coming you have just enough time to say OH SHIT! and then you’re all done. It happens in a… well… flash. Heh. All the waterways were running along beside me so I felt okay. It was when I couldn’t see that I was a little worried. One of the parts was yelling PULL OVER!!! PULL OVER!!! Wait it out! while the other was yelling NO WAY HIGGINS! PULLING OVER IS FOR PUSSIES!!! and since I am not a pussy and since I could see the general shape of the highway and since I am in fact a fearless explorer, I stayed the course. Once we got right under it the thunder was so loud it was shaking the ground and the lightening was hitting the ground all around us. I got in front of a big rig assuming he has more metal and it would hit him first. Sucker. It was blinding and when the rain was at its fiercest the lightening would make vision all but impossible. Blinding. I was driving blind. When I drove out the other side I was on FIRE! I was celebrating by yelling about not being a pussy and making it out alive and patting myself on the back for a job well done. This woke Jim up and got me a scathing look reminding me that the world does not revolve around me and some of us are taking a nap thank you very much. He wasn’t even impressed with the storm. Neither were the cows damn it. They were all just sitting there (next to the highway on MY SIDE mind you!) languidly chewing their cud out in the open next to the metal fence without a care in the world. It makes me wonder how many cows get struck by lightening per year. Especially during monsoon season. And how would they know? Do they get carried away by flash floods? I need to find a ranch hand big time. Maybe if I show interest he’ll let me ride a horse or something?

Tomorrow I am going to The International UFO Museum & Research Center. Jimmy is allowed in and I want to see this alien stuff first hand with my dog in tow. Like it isn’t weird enough all ready eh? Then I might go to the Bottomless Lakes State Park just cause. For now I am going to see if the stars are out and available. Maybe I can take some nasty pictures for you guys. I love stars. I'm also going to drop off my element protected note for the aliens. I’ll tell you all about Roswell tomorrow even though the woman at the front desk isn’t impressed with the place at all. I asked her what I could do with my dog in Roswell and her reply was, “Honey, even if you *lived* here and didn’t own a dog there’s still nothing to do”. All righty then.