Carlsbad on the Pecos

Holiday greetings to all!

We’re just leaving Tucumcari, New Mexico. We’ve been here before because the town is within the advertising area of two parks we do, Santa Rosa and Ute Lake. We’ve just finished a park in this little town and it didn’t take long, because there are only so many businesses to call on. They say Tucumcari used to have 30,000 people. It’s down to about 2,000 now. It used to be “the heart of Route 66” but now that long stretch through town is a series of flat-roofed, peeling and empty motels, boarded up liquor stores and signs and billboards advertising shops that are long gone. It has the usual number of small boutiques, but they are all short of stock, shelves a little dusty, the greeting cards faded. The rent is probably cheap.

Still, the convention center is new and active, the C of C is fairly vital, seeming to spend a lot of its energy competing with the convention center. We missed the Christmas parade but read about the “string of jeeps,” 30 jeeps connected by tow bars, serpentining through old town. Dave was especially sorry to miss that one.

It’s been cold here, 22 degrees at night, and we got the edges of the Denver blizzard and the Amarillo ice storm. Also had heavy winds, but nothing like the Seattle area had. Our biggest complaint is that the butter won’t spread in the morning. We actually had to find an ice scraper two days in a row. There was some grumbling that day about our job schedule….

I’ve met a new bird in New Mexico, the Says Phoebe. A common looking little yellow-brown bird, I met it in June when I was in a pet shop in Bernalillo. This little bird kept flying at the front, glass doors, almost knocking, until the owner went out and tossed a handful of mealy worms to the bird. The owner said the bird had just come back, that he was there the year before! I saw a couple last week in Santa Rosa. No birds here in Tucumcari. Can hardly wait to get further south and see the cardinals, probably have to get to Texas.

We’re in the land of the Albuquerque Isotopes, Odessa Jackalopes and the feared Amarillo Gorillas, local hockey teams. The highlight of our sports experience in New Mexico, however, is selling an ad to the Brian Urlacher Autoplex. It is testimony to my sales skills that I managed to recover from my opening of “May I please speak to Brian, please?” I’m still not sure what position Brian plays but now I know he’s a Chicago Bear, number 54, got voted pro bowl again, is from Lovington, New Mexico down the road and I’m one of his biggest fans! GO BEARS!

The weather is so iffy we aren’t going to Logan for Christmas. Our kids are being very understanding (as long as I get a Christmas tree up in the next two days, and I will, Kevin). So we boxed up the gifts and mailed them in a breaded okra box; no line at the post office here. We apologize to friends and family trying to send us anything. We have our mail forwarded from the Bend box about every 7 to 10 days and sometimes we have to have it sent to the place we plan to be next. It takes a week. We discourage packages because to forward them, Mailboxes, Etc. sometimes has to re-box them with other mail, and once we ended up paying $25 to have a package forwarded with a $5 postage sticker on it!

We’re headed to Carlsbad, New Mexico, home of the caverns and nuclear waste. On the way we get to spend a day in Roswell, home of the greatest, most memorable fabric store in my world. We plan to spend a week in Carlsbad, take some time off before heading off across Texas to our next job in Shreveport, Louisiana.

Our Christmas plans include a float on the Pecos River. Carlsbad features “Christmas on the Pecos,” a series of boats that float by beautifully lighted homes and buildings on the banks of the river. Not exactly the same class of gondola and dripping lights we experienced in San Antonio last year, but we’re looking forward to it just the same. We feel kind of good that we’re not too old to do something kind of goofy.

Holiday hugs to all of you. While we never get homesick, we do get pangs of “friendsickness,” and miss our times together, whether it was on the bike, on the patio, across the table, across the counter, or an occasional chance meeting of old pals. We’re grateful for this electronic opportunity to maintain connection, especially because the more we travel, the more people we meet, we realize how true it is, it’s all about connection.

Love,

Sam