Location: Traveloge, Globe, AZ (map)
Miles: 11256.1
I knew as soon as I turned up Highway 60 out of Socorro that I had made the right choice. Not only is this a beautiful and interesting stretch of highway, but for me it is filled with history.
Before I hit the open road, however, I took a spin around my old Alma Mater, New Mexico Tech, which back in the old days when I was there went by the moniker New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology. Two shocking things have happened to the place. One I witnessed myself, the other is hearsay from a fellow alum. First, the campus has been beautified significantly. I almost didn’t recognize my old dorm. It doesn’t look like a Motel 6 anymore. The second thing is (are you sitting down?) there are almost as many female students there as male now. Some of them are even attractive. Contrast this to when Bob challenged me to name seven attractive students at Tech and I got stuck at six. It made me want to go up to each male student and shake him by the shoulders and holler “Do ya know how good you have it here now? Do ya? DO YA?“
But I restrained myself and made my way to the south end of town and the highway. Ah, Highway 60. That critical artery of commerce connecting Quemado, Pie Town (right on the continental divide), and Magdalena. Wide open plains. Rolling hills. Grassland. Forest.
Memories.
The first fifty miles I could still do in my sleep. I drove it five times a week during the summer of the first bacchanal, 1985. It’s hard to believe that was more than 19 years ago. 
By the time we reached the VLA the pups and I were ready for a break and a walk, so we spent some time stomping around my old “office”. If the place looks familiar to you, yes, it was on a Nightranger album cover. (It was also in a couple of movies—you don’t want to watch Concact while sitting next to me. The movie’s OK, but the radio astronomy’s complete and utter crap.) Knowing the woeful state of science education in this country, let me put on my Dr. Science cap for a moment and give you the rundown on the VLA. The Very Large Array (Those guys were poets at heart when they named this baby) is a set of 27 antennae set up in the shape of a Y to act as one huge antenna (map – railroad tracks marked indicate the branches of the Y). It is, in fact, an enormous pinhole camera for radio waves. The dishes move on railroad tracks to change the size of the virtual antenna to optimize looking at big, close things (like the Sun) or very distant things (like quasars and white dwarfs. Actually Quasars are pretty honkin’ big, but they are all very, very far away.) This photo and the others over in the album reflect the widest spacing of the antenna, which is when the tiny-thing scientists try to book time. One side effect of the wide spacing on a day with scattered clouds is that it’s almost impossible to get all the dishes in a picture to be in the sun at the same time. Each arm of the Y stretches for miles. The dishes in the pictures are more than a mile apart.
Past the VLA is the continental divide, Pie Town, Quemado, and Springerville, AZ. Ah, Springerville. It was a chilly spring weekend in 1985. It was the weekend of my 21st birthday. A day to be celebrated, to be sure. My birthday was on Sunday, and at that time one could not buy alcoholic beverages on a Sunday in New Mexico. No problem. Being college students, when we learned of this crisis we quickly devised a plan to buy all the necessary beverages ahead of time. Saturday afternoon we stocked up. Saturday night we had a party and drank it all. Sunday dawned, bright and bleary, and we came to the realization that we had invited every female on campus (there weren’t that many, remember, and as a rule of thumb half the women who said they were definitely going to be there would show up, and twice as many men would be there as women. As long as you didn’t invite any men.) and we had no party ammunition. After trying to work a couple of local connections we determined that it was time for an interstate beer run.
Now, you boys back east with your dinky little states probably think nothing of this. It turns out the beer store closest to my dorm room that was open on Sunday was 158 miles away, west on Highway 60 to Springerville, AZ. Glen and I set out in the Alpha Romeo, top down, bundled up against the cold, heater blasting and tunes craking. 316 miles and one speeding ticket later (The State Trooper was bemused by our top-down stance when it was freezing cold. “Yeah, I remember when I was young and stupid,” he said, and it was clear he did. He was a cool cop.) we had our booze and the party was a resounding success, despite the fact that not one single female showed up. Perhaps because of that, things got pretty crazy that night.
Speaking of driving a long way, Highway 60 came into play again a few years later, when I was living in San Diego. It was on the eastward leg of another trip in the Alpha, this time with Bob as copilot, as we set out one Memorial Day Weekend to get Green Chile Cheeseburgers at the legendary Owl Bar in San Antonio, New Mexico (map). The chile isn’t the same every year, but after driving 800 miles I took a bite of the burger and blurted out “This is so good!” I was getting misty with the emotion. It was a damn good green chile cheeseburger. After we ate we drove a few more hours to visit our folks, and after sleeping a bit we headed back to California by a more northerly route (not all of it paved).
Highway 60 was also the road I took when I first drove out to San Diego. The Alpha was running in top form; I outran the raindrops and tasted freedom. It’s my favorite flavor.
Hensley also has memories of this road, not all of them as pleasant. I have experienced the climbing-into-Show Low-almost-out-of-gas adventure, but his story is better, and it’s only one of several. I’ll leave them for him to tell.
Jerry had such wonderful things to say of his drive to San Diego along highway 60 that I resolved to drive it back to New Mexico for Christmas of ’87. Of course he was driving his Alfa Romeo, and I was driving an International Harvester half-ton pickup. And he drove out in June, while I drove back in December. And while I always calculated my driving routes based on an assumed 250-mile driving range (not that the International got exceptionally bad mileage, but the gas tank was woefully small for a big chunk of Chicago iron), my cruising range shrank dramatically when I was dipping into the near-boundless well of big-displacement, low-rpm torque when doing the wallowing-hippo version of enthusiastic driving in the mountains. And I was motivated to drive enthusiastically, because I was trying to outrun a big, nasty blizzard.
I recall that Jerry had raved about the canyon views along one part of the drive. I’m pretty sure I was dealing with close to white-out conditions during that part. But the swirling winds were keeping the road mostly clear, so I kept hustling along as fast as I could. Until I realized that I was close to running out of gas. With the fuel pump clattering as it drew not gas, but air, around each corner, I finally spied the lights of civilization in the near distance. Exiting the highway to enjoy the petro-chemical fruits of said civilization, I found myself in an unincorporated mountain enclave of cabins, widely spaced streetlights, and no gas stations. I had to climb a long grade back to the highway. By this time six to eight inches of fresh snow covered all the roads. My first attempt to get back on the highway resulted in my losing traction on the uphill and sliding backwards toward the gasless hamlet, wheels vainly spinning forwards. My second attempt involved momentum, and it’s a good thing there were no other idiots out on the roads, because I slid sideways across both lanes of the highway slushing off my excess momentum, and nearly ended up in the ditch on the other side. Show Low was just a few miles down the road, and the gas station attendant obviously thought I was a moron for being out on those roads, at that time, in that weather, in my vehicle.
Ah, the only sorry point in that story is that you had no one to share the drama, misery, tension and mystery with. If only I had been there. I would love to give a dramatic enterpretation (somehow I feel you have down-played the real drama of those moments) Jer could, if he wanted tell you how much I love to interpret and exaggerate.
Southern New Mexico had been socked by a major snow storm a few days earlier, followed by a warm spell, followed by a freeze. Highway 60 hadn’t been plowed but then again, New Mexico didn’t have equipment to plow the southern stretches of I-25. By the time I hit NM 60, it was a four-inch sheet of ice with deep tire grooves. Driving it, I had no more directional control than a railroad conductor and as for braking and acceleration, well, I was driving on ice. Visions of head-on collisions with out-of-control semis in my head, I started off across the hills and arroyos of eastern New Mexico at about 25 mph. Until I reached the first hill. Once again I slid backwards, wheels spinning forwards. Once again I needed momentum, but this time I had to back up along the highway to get running room. The International had a *very* low reverse gear. If a car had appeared in my rear-view mirror, I wouldn’t have been able to get off the highway. The other driver wouldn’t have been able to stop.
Visions of being rear-ended by a semi in my head, I continued across the hills and arroyos of eastern New Mexico at about 45 mph, with absolutely no way to turn or stop in less than a quarter mile.
Ah Melinda, if you’d only been there. Somewhere west of Magdalena the highway was clear enough that I could pull off the road into a pull-out. I’d been driving for a *very* long time and as my friends can attest to, I tend to panick under conditions of sustained stress. I planned on grabbing a quick nap, but things quickly got very cold. If only I’d had someone with me, someone warm too…
Not to ask you your age or anything, but were you a consenting adult in 1987?
Anyway, I didn’t die, I drank a bunch of coffee in Pie Town (Minor continuity problem: Pie Town is west of Magdalena. Let’s just say that I was *way* west of Magdalena when I pulled off the highway.), and I made it home.
The really bad part of the trip was when Keith and I convoyed back from Los Alamos to San Diego.
Actually no… in 1987 I was in sixth grade. Lest you over estimate my math skills, I actually had to count that. But, rum and cokes will do that to a person.
I can only drink scotch with Jerry, then it doesn’t usually end well.
Shhhh Jerry.
I have experienced the awesome power in the struggle of man (or woman) and machine versus nature. My father, sending me out at the tender age of 17 to rescue my mother from the storm. In a 396 Super Sport Chevelle with a 4-speed power-glide. Considering the hills and stop lights involved, I’m just glad there were so few other idiots out on that fateful evening. I remember sliding a few corners (momentum required of course) and the distant echo of my mother’s screams. She didn’t seem to think the emergency brake was an effective cornering mechanism. — Chicken
Jer, speaking of things students at Tech have better now than they did back then, when you were in Socorro, did you check out the Socorro Springs Brewing Company, or can Pat and I still treat you to IPA and a calzone on your next trip through?
One last highway 60 story: (What’s gotten into me, you ask? Janice has been in Minneapolis on business and is flying back tonight. Apparently some weather event out East has bolloxed up the flight schedules, so she isn’t due into San Jose until midnight, unless the San Jose airport refuses to relax their “no commercial flights after 11:00” rule, in which case she’ll be overnighting in parts unknown. In the meantime I’m on call and driving all other blog comments out of the top 10.
But anyway: An appalling number of years ago, Jer and I decided to go to our 10-year high school reunion. It was summer, Jer had a Miata, and he was rarin’ for a rematch with highway 60. He wanted to be in top form too, so after Jer drove the initial, fun part of I-8, I drove the rest of the way to Phoenix while Jer snoozed. It was then my turn to “rest” while Jer tore up highway 60. Jer drove until he was knackered, shortly before sunrise. Massively refreshed by my hours of being a passenger in a car that was being driven very fast on very windy roads, I took the wheel.
Shortly after sunrise, driving along the hills and arroyos of eastern New Mexico while Jer slept, I took a brief nap too. I woke up in plenty of time to avoid the oncoming pickup and get back on the right side of the road, but I made Jer drive again. We didn’t die, and once again Pie Town was the source of much coffee.
Ah, highway 60. Them were the daze.
I give up. Here I am, thinking I’m taking advantage of staying up late in the Pacific time zone to make a run at dominating the comment list, and Melinda and Carol Anne are matching me post for post.
Obviously I should’ve posted my agonizingly long “Tales of Highway 60” one sentence at a time.
I’m feeling I missed so much. My wildest days seem mild in comparison. I guess I had too few role models. Or not enough imagination. Or too many people willing to buy me beer too close to home. It wasn’t until years later I discovered good beer.
Ah, give up my friend, Carol Anne is the Queen of imaginative posts. You were way up there with the tale of highway 60…
Actually, things were going kinda slow on this thread, so I’ve been wandering among others for a while. Sorry I was away for so long.
Alas, we’ve displaced the one interesting thing in the recent comments column — there was someone who had made a comment on the long-dormant over-easy egg thread.
BTW, John, what did happen when you and Keith convoyed back?
On another thread (tho I could tell the storey of my first time driving in the snow, which was, incidentally, my first time driving – thanx Jer) didn’t the VLA and Pie town itself make it into Aliens vs. Predators?
The southern convoy was the same trip? Man, John, you did have a bad time of it that year. Maybe we should let Keith tell that one, although I’m sure John could do it in a lot more words. (More words = more entertainment. Ask any nanowrimo participant.)
Hey, John! You should do NaNoWriMo this year!
I haven’t seen AvP, so I don’t know if the VLA’s in there or not. Some of the consulting advice I gave you may have been inaccurate; The Eagle in Datil no longer has the same name, or at east the name is no longer painted on the roof in big red letters.
I’m glad Vanessa left that comment over there in the Egg episode. I hope she writes back and lest us all know how it went (and invites me over for breakfast?she’s somewhere in the central time zone. could be handy on my way over to hand with Jesse).
I didn’t check out the brew pub in Socorro because of the dogs. I couldn’t take them in and I couldn’t leave them in the car on such a hot day.
OK, Jer, now you HAVE to come back through and let us treat.
Actually, the challenge to Jerry (and ??) was to name 7 women students at NM Tech who would be considered attractive even if they attended a different school. The challenge (which included spirited debates between Jer and ?? on what exactly constituted “attractive”) lasted 30 minutes (much to the amusement of my father) before receiving what can only be described as a mercy killing.
What is the shocking thing that is hearsay from another alum?
Now I remember, ?? = Glen.
The recap:
Two guys (Jer & Glen) brainstorming for 30 minutes using generous guidelines for “attractive” came up with 6 names.
I remember that it gave me a new found appreciation for “Rice Girls”.
We had trouble getting in touch with the Eagle Ranch, so we used the Daily Slice in Pietown. Don’t know if the menus and boxes will be visible in the film or not, but the folks there in Pie Town were real friendly, so next time you should stop in and say you saw their stuff in the movie.
I believe I have found a worthy successor to John’s old International pickup … after about 30 years of not making pickups, International’s going to make one again, and they’re calling it the world’s biggest production pickup. It’s 9 feet tall, 8 feet wide, 20 feet long, has a 470 diesel engine (bigger ones are available), a 70 gallon fuel tank, air brakes, and a bed that tilts like a dump truck.
http://www.internationaldelivers.com/site_layout/news/newsdetail.asp?id=595
Bet THAT will scare the squirrels! At the very least, you could haul a lot of antimatter.
It’s made from the feathers of fortyleven geese, took a whole bolt of cloth for the tick.
Mmm. Roast goose. On highway 60?
Ah, the road trip of Christmas 1987. I’ll always remember it for the trip out from San Diego through Arizona back to Los Alamos in early December. Gorgeous, crisp weather. The two $5 concerts by U2 at Sundevil stadium at the end of the Joshua Tree tour. If the trip out was a blaze of glory with “Where the streets have no name” for a theme song, then the trip back with John in the snow was “The wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.”
I doubt the new International truck is “soft as a downy chick.” But it probably can “hold eight kids and six hound dawgs and a piggy we’d stole from the shed.”
Now, Keith, John, one a ya’s got to tell the story. (We didn’ git much sleep …)
Hey, storytellers, we’re waiting ….
I was hoping Keith would pick up the narrative ball here, for the simple reason that the return trip doesn’t make as good a story. Yep, I am that selfish.
Rumors were that I-40 was still closed in Flagstaff, so we elected to take the southern route. The way southern route — turn right at Las Cruces; no more of that highway 60 crap. Snowplows hadn’t magically appeared in southern NM, so I-25 was in a slushy, snowpacked condition. At least the left lane — the right lane had mostly been cleared by truck traffic.
I don’t remember exactly how I got ahead of Keith. Maybe it was by plan, on the assumption that his car wouldn’t die of old age while going down the road. Maybe, after a few forays into the left lane to pass slower traffic, Keith mysteriously stopped passing, so I elected to lead the way. Those brain cells have since expired, so unless Keith remembers this pointless detail is lost in the mists of middle age.
Anyway, I got ahead of Keith and then after some miles realized there was no sign of him in the rear-view mirror. I turned around at the next exit (Imagine! A time before cell phones!) and back.
There was Keith, stuck in the snow in the median. Turns out that Keith was having hydroplaning issues with the slush in the left lane. With far skinnier tires and a massive bus engine to squish my front tires through the slop, I hadn’t noticed. I got going in the correct direction and pulled into the median to help Keith get free. And failed. It was decided that I would continue south to Truth or Consequences and get a tow truck. Except I was nearly stuck myself. It took Keith and I a while to get my truck back on the road, and by that time I had burned so much gas…
Yep, I ran out of gas on the freeway. I hitched a ride to T or C, bought a can of gas, and hitched another ride (in the back of a pickup — fun) back to my truck. The moment my ride pulled onto the highway Keith appeared, so he got to watch me slowly get rimed and crusty around the edges.
It turned out that someone else had (more successfully) come to Keith’s aid.
Then there was the “shortcut” (mea culpa) that simply forced us to parallel the highway on a much slower frontage road. The vast puddle I hit at 50 mph, resulting in a quarter-inch of ice flash-freezing on my windshield (Keith was probably wondering why he was following me at this point, but at least he got through the puddle unscathed in my tire-wakes). And finally, the vehement, brain-frazzled conversation about whether we should turn left or right at Las Cruces. I honestly don’t remember which of us was bound and determined to go to Texas. It was dark by then so we punted and spent the night in Las Cruces, and drove to San Diego (with no notable adventures that I can recall) the next day.
It was a crummy trip, made crummier by the fact that I don’t think it makes a very interesting story. But I wrote it all out anyway — sorry about that.
John, don’t sell your storytelling ability short. You have a very entertaining style. You know, maybe you ought to do the NaNoWriMo thing too.
Interesting thought: the JerBloggers as a NaNoWriMo coalition. The challenge: how many of Jer’s blogfans can generate a novel in November?
I’m behind that. It’s a well-documented NaNoWriMo fact that those who work together have a higher chance of success. (Success in this case is a highly plastic word.)
It has occurred to me to give the NaNoWriMo challenge a shot. I figure I have three things going for me: Quality is not an issue, I can burn through many words while not making much narrative headway, and something else.
Hey, John, it’s that burning through words thing that counts. In case you missed the other post, might Polkacide be available next year for Oktoberfest at Five O’clock Somewhere?
It only takes a mediocre typist to poop out 1,667 words in a couple-three hours. The miracle of nanowrimo is that you stop yourself from stopping yourself. In my ramblings I’ve heard great stories from people who insist they can’t write. What’s the difference? Tell the story. Cross the t’s later. I thing John is ripe for a road novel with two characters – him and an International Harvester pickup with a sticky carburetor float. The others that pass through the story are merely decoration.
There was an item on the TV news this evening, about a project to collect histories of veterans of all sorts, from WWII to the current war that supposedly ended a few months ago. One of the interview subjects was Tom Clancy, who had what I feel to be an excellent summing-up of the spirit of NaNoWriMo: “If you can sit in a bar and tell a story, you can write a book.” While Clancy was talking specifically about veterans in a bar telling about their experiences, it would also seem to apply to anyone who has a story to tell.
Carol Anne,
Polkacide needs a financial guarantee that we won’t lose our shirts playing an out-of-town gig. Most band members have day gigs (jobs) that prevent them from missing a bunch of workdays, which would happen if we drove. But airfare for a nine-member band is expensive. Then we’d have to rent the back-line equipment (amplifiers, PA, drum set, probably a bass), because it’s too expensive to fly with that stuff. We’d need vehicular transportation that could carry all the people (from previous tours, it takes one 13-passenger van or two minivans) and a place to stay. Even if, between the two of us, we managed to get the band housed for free (and there are one or two members I’d hesitate exposing my family to) it would still be expensive.
Booking Polkacide into a club probably wouldn’t be sufficient. Headliners typically get a cut of the door, and P’cide usually doesn’t draw well in a new market. We’ve lost lots of money our last two midwest tours when we’ve played clubs for a percentage of the door, and that’s in a part of the country where the word “polka” actually attracts some people.
The thing to do is find a festival in New Mexico, ideally an Oktoberfest sponsored by a town or local micro-brewery, and help Polkacide get booked to play there. Schedule your event either immediately before or after that festival, and the band will probably play your event for a pittance in gratitude.
Be aware that “helping Polkacide get booked” translates as “do almost all the work.” I can’t express how ineffective the band is at managing and booking itself.
Aw, darn. Shroyer Center definitely would be too small of a venue to be worthwhile. The city of Rio Rancho has the biggest Oktoberfest in the state, but I don’t know enough about how booking bands works to know how to get you all into the lineup (although we could lend you a bass).
So maybe you just let me know where to get Polkacide’s CDs, and we’ll at least have something to put into the boombox next year.
Polkacide currently has one CD out, “Hardcore 2/4,” available new at http://www.polkacide.com, under the Merchandise link.
I also recommend The Polkaholics “Polka Can’t Die” — polkaholics.chicagogigs.com/order.html.
So a few more details on the fateful trip of ’87. I was driving a brand spanking new 88 Mustang Convertible GT, with 300 foot pounds of torque in the rear just dying to break the back of the car free given the slightest decrease in friction between my rubber and the road. Indeed, I had fish tailed all the way down the slight incline of Sycamore Street as I had my first experience in driving in snow in a rear wheel drive vehicle that didn’t have the engine sitting over the drive wheels (e.g. a VW Bug). John and my grand plan was to drive straight south on I 25 to get to warmer climes and away from the snow. All we did was get away from the snowplows, and discovered unplowed (but trafficked) Interstate south of Albuquerque. Somewhere in Socorro we got separated. Somewhere south of Socorro I decided John must be ahead of me somehow, and so I started passing cars doing a circumstantially correct 25 mph in single “cleared” lane. I tried passing one car too many, lost it in the slushy passing lane, and plowed into the 2 to 3 feet of pristine snow in the median. My muscle car was dead meat where it lay. The car I tried to pass (and all the drivers of the cars I had passed up to that fateful moment) probably slowly passed me by and thought to themselves, “Serves the bastard right.” And they’d be right. After waiting 3 or 4 hours (and beginning to wonder about the possibility of freezing to death as the sun got closer to the horizon) a pickup truck happened by. He winched me out of the median for what I have always described as the best $20 I ever spent. It was then off to find John, who never returned with a tow truck as he had promised. I found him parked on the right side of the road some miles south. Very cautiously, I parked on the left side of the road (it being the place I could most assuredly come to rest without fishtailing again), and ran across the road to berate him for forgetting about me. At that very moment, the first and only NM Highway Patrol Car we have seen all blessed day shows up. His presence would have been welcomed any time today to help us travelers in distress, but all he does now is yell at us for being parked on the side of the road and threatens to ticket us (me in particular) if we don’t move our cars immediately. That’s the ironic part of the story that really brings a tear to my eye.
Headed out tomorrow morning from SD to LA. Current plans are to take the fabled Route 60, from Globe to Show Low to Pie Town to Socorro. Gonna git us some culture at the Santa Fe Opry Wednesday night.
Big rain storm @Miami; coming down in buckets. Made Globe by 5:30; decided to press on to Showlow. Almost hit deer crossing road (looked just like the sign as it bounded across the road). Saw bear on side of road 7 miles outside of Showlow. Found Showlow to be sold out of motel rooms for the night at 7:30. Faced with slim pickings on Route 60 until Socorro, gave up and headed north to Holbrook on I-40, and still took 5 tries to find a lobby clerk to satisfy our needs. Perhaps all this romanticism of American Road myth and hitting the open road without a plan isn’t really for the suburban family of 4 in a Camry.
Things are different now, than when the myth was born. In an earlier day when two-lane blacktop was the only choice and the range and reliability of cars was more limited, small towns flourished by providing gasoline, burgers, and a place to sleep. Now people can go farther, much faster, and generally choose big dots on the map to stop in.
You can see the crumbling remains of the little towns, but that’s all.
It sounds like your trip did have its moments, though.
Ah ha! MOH has taken root here in Vegas…NM! Talk about crumbling towns, this place is one of them. One advantage it does have…it doesn’t look like the rest of New Mexico. Red Brick downtown, and very little adobe. Even with its historic crumble, the films keep rolling in. So, live from Las Vegas…it’s the New Millennium!
In the smaller towns, the little motels and other roadside businesses get abandoned and decay.
In the cities, such as Albuquerque, they might remain open, but they become havens of vice, where drug dealers and prostitutes do business. This month’s story is of a historic motel and gas station. The new owner, who just bought the property a month ago, wishes to demolish the back part of the property to build upscale condos, and convert the front portion to a small shopping mall.
Since the property is on the National Registry of Historic Places, the property owner has a lot of hurdles to get past. The property owner contends that the rear portion of the original motel isn’t part of Route 66, since it was somewhat removed from the road, so tearing that part down to replace with condos doesn’t destroy any Historic Route 66 buildings. The rest of the property will be remodeled into retail space but keep the original buildings, according to the developer’s plans. But the remodeleing doesn’t keep with historical architectural styles.
Normally, I don’t like zoning boards that place serious restrictions on what a property owner can do, but I would like to see some restrictions on destroying a cultural resource. Yeah, we don’t want blight, but also, we want to preserve history.
Well, pL, if you are indeed the MOH as you claim, why was the 46021 visitor from *Placitas, NM* and not Las Vegas? Explain that one away (like the government transfering Bill to Anchorage just when his mayoral aspirations were about to pay off…)
Tonight we are in St. George, Utah, and by tomorrow afternoon should be home in San Diego. Sorry, Jerry, but nothing I said to the family could convince them to push on another hour to Mesquite, Nevada, and the Stateline Motel. In fact, the more I explained of your adventures there and the comely barmaids, the more and more my wife seemed mad and irritated. The boys shut up in the back seat, though, and actually listened without interrupting…