A Paper-Tweet Vacation

We recently drove from sunny Coastal Texas to chilly-snowy North-Central New Mexico.  We do this sometimes.  Usually in a Eurovan with three children and enough stuff to keep us busy for three months.  The drive both ways was absolutely beautiful.  The Sonars wanted to see snow in New Mexico and they were not disappointed.  The snow season in New Mexico has been spectacular (it’s snowed once more since we left).  We had flurries at Papa and Nana’s house on the northwest side of Albuquerque, and we spent a glorious slippery afternoon tobogganing on the east side of the Sandias. 

I resisted the urge to tweet away the vacation with my phone.  At more leisurely moments though, I could not resist the urge to jot down (on actual paper!) things I might have tweeted at those moments.  And just to make it look like I have nothing to do right now, I thought I’d share them with you. 

 The stunning sunset view from my parents’ porch. North Albuquerque and a portion of the Sandia Mountains at sunset. Please click this thumbnail to make it bigger. It’s worth it.

March 13, 2010

*On the road from Calvert, Texas to Corrales, New Mexico.

*Lost in Waco, home of Dr Pepper. Baylor buildings are pretty. Don’t see any bears.

*Dublin, TX. Heard a rumor they make DP w/cane sugar here. Knights of Pithius sign in the Rotary bldg window. Big shudder.

*Gorman Mills. Peanut elevator!

*Abilene is long and skinny w/ few food choices on the interstate besides truck stops.

*Sweetwater, TX, Sonic. Rattlesnake Roundup this weekend. Apparently we are the only people here not attending.

*Roscoe, TX. Wind turbines on the edge of the highway. Huge and ready to march across the plains. They are crankin!

*Farm the wind from the air and cotton from the soil. Road Radio: Def Leppard.

*Price Daniel Unit TDJC. What does this mean? Road Radio: Bad girlfriend.

*Snyder, TX. Bathroom break. 

*Knitting. Finished a sock at Justiceburg, TX.

*Texas is pretty big. 11 hours on the road and we haven’t left the state yet. #understatement

*Pride Runs Deep in Shallowwater. #roadsigns

*Anton, TX. Pronunciation tips anyone? Ant’n? Ann-tahn?

*Looks like dinner in Clovis, NM. Anyone have a favorite place?

*Prairie dogs are watching cars go by from the edge of the freeway.

*Sudan.

*Tumbleweed!

*Ack!  (Someone nearly ran us off the road there. Happily, a state trooper was there to catch the dangerous passing and the speeding)

*Was that a pull-camper decorated like a dog?

*Ah. We made it to our destination in good time.  To bed now. 

 Sunday March 14

*Someone who shall remain nameless, in an overtired state, might have tried to pee on the ceiling in his sleep.

*Cold front moves in. Sky turns gloomy. Will it snow?

*It’s snowing! We’re bundling up the kids to go look for enough snow to slide in.

*Snow rain sun snow rain sun snow rain sun

*Toboggan at Sandia moutains. Slushy cold snowballs silding mud fluffy snowflakes fun leading to happy tired.

*Altitude change and dry air playing havoc with sinuses.

Monday March 15

*Snow-covered mountain view in the morning sunshine.  Sonar X9 wants to do more sliding. Brisk walk.

*The kids are bringing sand from the driveway to the patio on sock-load at a time.

Tuesday March 16

*Albuquerque has a lot of billboards. #understatement

*Explora! An amazing museum where we can play with everything! Sciencey, puzzley, educationey, geeky.

*Explora! We could come back every day and neither get bored nor play with it all. 

*Explora! There are many things in this museum I’d love to imitate at home. Ex: the stretchy sail room dividers that are adjustibly attached to walls with old stereo jacks. (ok, that one’s too long to be a tweet. Cut me some slack.  I was on vacation.)

*Explora! Gift shop is as awesome as the rest of the museum. I bought brain-teaser puzzles for the drive home.

*Dream food: Little Anita’s chicken tacos or enchiladas.

*A common New Mexico question: red or green?  Come on.  No contest.  Green all the way baby. 

*Dry sinus misery. If I don’t drink till my eyeballs float I can hardly breathe. I might be turning into a mummy.

Wednesday March 17

*Happy St. Patrick’s day. Brisk morning walk. Chewy dark beer in the afternoon. Home-cooked corned beef and cabbage by Nana.

*New running shoes and sport sandals for Sonar X9 (he’s training for a team marathon). Shiny shoes are always faster.

*Didn’t get a chance to call bro to wish him a happy birthday until it was late in the evening. I suspect he’s already on a pub crawl.

Thursday March 18

*Another brisk morning walk. Convinced Sonar X5 to come. Sonar X9 ran most of the way.

*New sport sandals for Sonar X5. Not so shiny but easier to shake out the sand than tennies.

*Dan, Sonars X7 and X9 return to the mountain for more sliding. Here on the mesa it’s nearly 70F.

*Sonar X5 and I hang with Nana on the patio and try not to get a sunburn. Only partly successful.

*Delicious pizza dinner and more of that growly dark beer. Love the molassesy undertones. 

Friday March 19

*Rough night w/much sneezing, coughing, and flopping. We are all histy. Time to head home. New Mexico we will miss you!

*On the road by 6am MDT. Hoping to hit our southerly turn at Cline’s Corners before sunrise breaks the horizon.

*Made the turn moments before daybreak, saving us some eyeball splitting.

*Beautiful sunrise over the desert. Orange yellow pink purple blue grey.

*Everyone’s skin feels like paper.

*Snow remains in many shady nooks and crannies along the road.

*Encino, NM is not quite a modern day ghost town, but very very close. Not much more than a speed trap w/ many dilapidated buildings.

*Breakfast in Vaughn, NM. The Conoco store or Penny’s Diner?

*Penny’s was nice. It will fill you up, but don’t expect it to be fast. 

*Eastern New Mexico: big ranches, wide open spaces, cows, easy driving on 285S to Roswell.

*Speed limit: 70mph. My speed: 74mph. The driver who just passed me rapidly: reading a book. #crazy

*Vaughn to Roswell: not much. A few startlingly green alfalfa fields, fewer than a dozen buildings visible from highway, handful of bus stops.

*Subtle shift around mile marker 114. Less cow. More drilling.

*Roswell’s alien kitsch is always fun. Town seems very vibrant compared to many communities.

*Let the tantrums commence. Nearly 1/3 home, three tantrums so far. Good news though, I can mostly breathe through my nose again. 

*Almost halfway. Trying to delay lunch another half hour. Should I bribe them with jellybeans?

*Stop sign in middle of nowhere. Intersection between US Hwy 285 and TX Farm to Market Rd 1776. No traffic. Weird.

*Ft. Stockton one of my fave parts of this drive. Halfway and the wind turbines.

*The turbines stand at the head of the mesas and ridges like forward scouts or sentinels. Sneak up in valleys to ambush unsuspecting passersby.

*A beautiful sand- and chocolate-colored paint horse near the road.

*The scrubby bushes at Ft. Stockton grow steadily on the road to San Antonio, gradually becoming trees.

*A goat standing on the side of the road.  Some dogs on the roof of a building. Not in the same towns.

*Darkness falls as we hit San Antonio. We stop to eat and load up an audio book for the kids. Hoot by Carl Hiassen.

*Kids drop off to sleep one at a time. We do not drop off to sleep. 

*Amazingly, we make it home way before midnight. One more brief tantrum of waking confusion, and we all land in our beds, happy to be home.

*We’ve had a lovely time. Thanks for sharing snippets with me. #love