further adventures on route 66.

today we left tucumcari far behind us. it may well be a nice place somehow, but we found a bad corner of it to curl up into and were happy to depart. not long after departing new mexico (a state that some bathroom graffiti proclaimed to be 'the most depressing state ever'), we rolled into big old texas...well a little bit of texas, anyway. i started to feel back on track when we found cadillac ranch, a place that nancy had told us to visit when we told her our itinerary from santa fe.



cadillac ranch (just west of amarillo) is a privately owned ranch with ten old caddies set into the ground...well, you can see for yourself. they are all covered in spray paint now; but nancy told us of her first encounter with the ranch before the cars were turned to canvases. aitor and i agreed we might have liked it better then. as impressive as the installation of the cars is (and it is) there was something disappointing in the fact that since the graffiti is encouraged it is therefore being added to by people who wouldn't normally take such risks. mostly it was nerds. and some babies. aitor demonstrates the stance of a nerd spray painting:



as we were leaving, a whole mini van full of little children were disembarking and getting to pick out their own cans of spray paint.



on the way to oklahoma city, we decided to do some route 66 tourism. this website is a great resource for such things, should you ever find yourself interested. to this end, we made a little stop in mclean, texas. actually, we went through a lot of small towns. some were really sad with their once glowing strips atrophied now that the buzz of the interstate is a mile or two away. mclean was full of route 66 stuff. we visited a weirdly "restored" old phillips 66 station (it is kind of restored to look like a playground). this was listed as one of mclean's big attractions and it kind of fizzled for us. but i did see a bunny.



the other attraction promoted on all kinds of lead-up signage was the devil's rope museum. we couldn't figure out what that could mean. until...



we were heart broken to find it closed! we smudged up the windows trying to peer inside. there was a whole map of texas with soil samples from every county! information about barbed wire clubs! a whole postcard wall! their website also offers insight into this magnificent icon of the american west and its historical significance. they also help with appraisals. appraisals! we couldn't believe we had just stumbled upon this amazing institution and were forced to leave it unexplored. oh, to find our way back to mclean. until then, we will just have to dream...

farewell, new mexico.

today the brakes on the car completely failed (thankfully at low speed).

$1300 later, we were on our impoverished way. we spent the night at a terrible, roachy motel in tucumcari, new mexico - so much for historic route 66 motel romance. never ever stay at the americana motel, regardless of the few dollars cheaper it is from nearby motels in the truck stop coupon book. never.

white horse, red roof, green gate.

...when these are signposts towards your intended location, it is a fairly sure bet that said destination will be of interest.

tonight we camped out at the home of my father's friend, nancy, who lives on the outskirts of santa fe. she made us a lovely dinner of non-road food and we drank wine and talked about friends and families. nancy is also full of stories that push all of our romantic notions to new heights - working for georgia o'keefe, meeting hunster s. thompson and spending time on a robert altman set. really, these are mythical possibilities to me. so...which of my current friends is growing towards being a legend? it better be one of you, because i want to be that impressive someday.



oh, her? that's ophelia. we got to camp out and hang out with a beautiful horse.

i should also mention that today began with a last splash in albuquerque. i had a meeting arranged with the supremely lovely ladies from self serve. at our new friend christie's suggestion, i went in there peddling my wares. being a sexual resource centre, i thought they would mostly be into emma's love porn buttons but to my surprise the store stocks a lot of things besides bedside apparatuses. apparently knitting is also kinky. so go in there if you need buttons in the 505. i will leave the goodies inside behind their frosted glass for now. you'll have to go poke around in person.

the mother road.

...a nick name for route 66. it is also called the main street of america. in albuquerque, the nice old parts of route 66 are on what is now (and maybe then) central street. although probably considered garish at the time, i am awfully fond of the old motel signs that dot it. they speak of american dreams - you know, big gaudy independent business advertising. this was also the america in which two brothers named mcdonald opened a burger shop in a fit of american independence. it's too bad that so many of the old business and motels along route 66 are boarded up, even though their big signs remain. i guess america hit a point where it wanted those with an independent spirit to grow up. also, the interstate system put a swift end to the boom of route 66. interstates are better, after all, for get lots of stuff from one big place to another. travelling through the main streets of small town america became less important.

i think about this sort of stuff in a microcosmic way when considering my own independent lifestyle and business. is it somehow a failure of purpose or a character flaw to want to stay small? is it wrong to aim for sustenance instead of infinite (even incremental) growth? i truly wonder.

mail call!

hey, do you miss us? want to send us mail/gifts? if these predicaments apply to you, then you are in luck! we will be in atlanta, georgia, from august 27 - 31, 2008 (where i will be performing) and our lovely hosts have allowed us to use their mailing address. here it is, internet:

Becky Johnson and/or Rev. Aitor
c/o Dad's Garage Theatre
280 Elizabeth St. C-101
Atlanta, GA. 30307

so mail away! we probably miss you, too.

otherwise, you are stuck doing what lauren did. and that is way too infinite.

red or green?

today we took it very easy. we looked around the grounds of the awesome complex where shenoah lives (note bone and cactus sculpture above), we ate yummy food at winning coffee co., ran into shenoah's cool friends everywhere and ended up watching a gypsy swing band at the end of the night. they are call le chat lunatique and are certainly worth checking out.



muni (far left with fiddle) also came by later to visit and we had some good late night chats. we were trying to stay out of shenoah's hair as he packed up his house in preparation to depart to edinburgh tomorrow. if you happen to be in edinburgh this coming month, i do suggest you go see him and the great chavez in their new show, versus vs. versus. i haven't seen it but i don't have to. i know them. they are great.

oh, yes. and we learned that new mexico has an official state question - "red or green?" without context i wouldn't have figured out why. can you?

wrangling and rustling.

on our way to albuquerque, we made a very brief pit stop in douglas, arizona - a border town that used to be the bustling centre of trade and smeltering for the copper industry down here. we stopped into the historic gadsden hotel (home to lots of hauntings and lovely architectural touches). actually, all the hotels here are haunted. the copper queen in bisbee even keeps a ghost log that we thumbed through last night. it had such entires as "wet washcloth fell off shower nozzle, couldn't recreate how" and "change moved one inch on bedside table". pretty spooky stuff.

then we drove. and drove and drove.



it's nice to be able to stop on a state route and just get out of one's car and stand in the middle of the road for a while. peaceful, scorching and nice. we skirted the mexican border and made a little stop in the barely-new mexican town of rodeo. there we went to the nicest post office ever to mail some packages home. they didn't even have one of those postage printers so we got to discover that there is such a thing as a $16.50 american stamp. the lady who worked there said she would try to find the nicest stamps she had to fill out our postage, so look out for that, leah.



after a brief pit stop in truth or consequences, new mexico (a town that named itself in response to a challenge put forth by a 1950's radio program of the same name), we made our weary way to the safe comfort of our friend shenoah's company. his home is also comfortable.