There was no alarm set for 4:30, but that didn’t stop us from waking up and getting out on the road by 5:00 in the early morning. When we left we could see still stars to the west ahead of us and barely an inkling of light behind us. We were probably nearly an hour down the road when we pulled over to snap this photo of the rising sun back on the western edge of the plains.

We had left Santa Rosa so early that our breakfast choices were non-existent, but by the time we reached Moriarty, New Mexico, a place called Lulu’s Kitchen on Route 66 was just opening. This little joint is not a sit-down operation, and for one second, I considered going elsewhere, but time is precious today, so we opted to try their breakfast burritos. This being New Mexico, we had the choice of red or green chili, which was a plus. That our burritos took nearly 15 minutes to prepare. We at first perceived this as a negative, but that was only until we took our first bites. “Wow!” doesn’t do Lulu’s breakfast burros justice as they were perfect, nothing short of that. They are only open from Monday through Thursday from 6:00 to 2:00, so if you just happened to be passing through Moriarty on one of those four days during those limited hours, be sure to stop by.

From burritos to red rocks, we are back in the familiar.

Harkening to a golden age of travel with people driving across the United States for an Old West experience, this is a typical Route 66 tourist stop for travelers to buy souvenirs made by real Indians, find clean toilets, and live their dreams from a childhood playing cowboys and Indians. Rest stops like these across Arizona and New Mexico invited people to marvel at the wonders never seen before in person.

These relics are now mostly dilapidated, while some hold on better than others. Typically, we’ve avoided stopping as there’s a sadness to seeing the failing enterprises that, in days gone by, were likely hopping places bringing in a lot of outside currency.

It was still early when we arrived here at the NM-AZ state line, hoping to find a roadside vendor selling roast mutton. We’d seen a sign west of Gallup, New Mexico, that a shop here sold roast sheep ribs, but they weren’t open yet, so no mutton for us. As for buying stuff from Teepee Trading that was open, we couldn’t bring ourselves to go in as there really wasn’t anything we wanted to add to our hoard of stuff.

How many times have we passed by and failed to stop and capture this Arizona State Line sign?  Countless times, that’s how many.

The town of Houck was named after a local trading post operator, James D. Houck. Trying to take photos from the car moving at highway speed didn’t allow me to fully investigate the surroundings; just the bright yellow sign was the first thing that caught my eye. And so I can’t tell you what else might be open, though it’s obvious that the old Armco gas station is no more and that whatever is left of Fort Courage is for sale. Not that I would expect most any reader of my blog to remember this, but the old show called F Troop that ran in the mid-60s and which I watched as reruns was set at Fort Courage. Not this trading post called Fort Courage, but at a fictional place. Anyway, that’s it for my nostalgia, I think.

Get your CLEAN RESTROOMS, Indian Ruins, and Route 66 junk you didn’t know you needed at the NEXT EXIT!

What else were you supposed to do on those long cross-country drives when the family was cruising down the highway with nary a radio station to tune into, and your car could barely do 60 mph on your way to the Grand Canyon that was still 190 miles away?

“Dad, you’ve got to stop at the next place; they have dinosaur fossils and petrified wood. I bet they’ll have ice cream, too.”

“Oh my god, are those real dinosaurs? Come on, Mom, make Dad stop; we’ve got to pee.” Getting wise, Mom asks, “Didn’t you just pee at Fort Courage?”

“But they have real teepees at that place, pleeeeze, Dad; you’ve gotta stop.”

As the years passed, so did the cars as people were no longer out seeing the sights, the drivers have somewhere to be, and tchotchkes they believed were probably made in Japan (1980s) or China (2000s) were not interesting. The days of Native Americans being curiosities are over, while nostalgia probably lives on for those trying to capture something out of the past.

In Holbrook, we were able to leave the interstate and return to the small roads that would take us home or maybe not. We’ve gotten the message that today will be a good day to pick up our new glasses from the Oculist, which is going out of business, so we’ll be going into Phoenix to deal with that and let the owners, Brian and Angela get on with changing their life’s direction. They’ll be missed, but everyone has to take a new direction from time to time.

From the passenger seat, “Come on, John, you’ve got to turn around; I’ve always wanted to check out those chainsaw carvings…and I’ve got to pee.”

I’m making an extra effort today to photograph our return to Arizona since it feels that I too often neglect large parts of the landscape here because they feel so familiar. I’ve probably posted them dozens of times after all, but the reality is, I’ve likely not shared these stretches I might be taking for granted.

Even though I know that Arizona is not all sand and cactus, I somehow want to forget that beyond the Grand Canyon, many people probably don’t know about our vast forested areas and herds of unicorns. Okay, we don’t have unicorns; I just wanted to see if anyone was reading this stuff, aside from our AI Overlords.

We have just left the Payson, Arizona, area on the Mogollon Rim, and for years, I’ve wanted photos of this transition zone from forest to desert, but the intensity of aggressive drivers racing to get back to Phoenix makes for a white-knuckled drive down to the lower elevations. Combine that wreckless speed assault with the fact that there’s no safe place to pull over, and the options to stop for photos are reduced to nil. So, through the windshield, I attempt a quick burst of images as Caroline handles the wheel from my right; I think we make a great team, albeit an occasionally dangerous one.

So, in yesterday’s post at the end of it, I mentioned a strange phone call. We were about to go to sleep when an old friend named Krupesh called me. We’d not heard from him in years. The first thing that came to mind was that he was chosen to share some dire news about someone we used to be close to in the Indian community who had passed away, but before he could convey that, he was already asking me to hold on. He handed the phone to someone else, and an even more distant voice said, “Hi John.” It was Jay Patel. The last time we saw Jay was August 15, 2004, as he was leaving the United States to return to India. He asked if we could meet the next day as he would be in Arizona for only two days and had to leave on Wednesday. Certainly, we could make that happen. Getting out of New Mexico early and not taking any detours on this last day of vacation was to ensure we would be back home in time to give us the greatest flexibility for fitting into his tight schedule.

I can’t believe we were just talking about Jay while we were up in North Dakota as the last time we were in that state, it was with him, and now here today, after nearly 20 years, we are seeing him and his daughter face to face. Jay was in the United States to take his mom and his little girl Siya to Disneyworld with a very brief stop here to say hi to friends. It would have been easy to monopolize Jay’s time, but when we arrived at Krupesh’s home, there were close to 20 people already there, so we did our best to race through shared memories and update each other about things happening in our respective lives.

This is Sonal’s mom, who’s earned the title, Ba – meaning grandmother. Sonal, you might remember, was the owner of Indo Euro Foods and was the person who convinced us to move closer to them back in 2003, which was great as we shared many meals over at their house for nearly ten years before circumstances saw us all drifting in various directions. It was Ba who made the exquisite food we’d enjoyed with them on so many occasions. It was simply wonderful seeing her smile again.

Of course, there was food and lots of it, but as I said, we didn’t want to keep Jay from everyone else who wanted to fall into conversation and laughter with the guy, so we took our leave after little more than a couple of hours here. On the left is Rinku; I photographed her wedding back in 2009; on the right is Sonal Patel, who will forever be an important part of our lives even if we rarely see her these days. Our time in the Gujarati community was a milestone in the experiences that have left indelible impressions upon us; we miss everyone who, for a decade, were some of our best friends.