Roadside Attractions, or Don't Lose Your Head

I mentioned Edward Abbey's Desert Solitaire in a post last week.  Another of his themes is that air travel has made us less appreciative of our country and landscape.  To really see and appreciate our country, you have to walk it.  Or bicycle it, or at least drive it.  And preferably not on the interstate.  Flying is like time travel.  You start in one location and wake up in a new one.  There is no sense of "getting there."

I love to drive.  A lot of the fun is seeing unexpected landscape or landmarks.  The first driving vacation I remember taking as a family was a trip to Florida in 1976.  One of the highlights was getting lost in Mississippi.  I can't remember what we left the highway to look for. We ended up on a road lined with trees draped with Spanish moss, just like you see in the movies.  Finally we came to an old burned-out plantation house close to the river.  If my memory is correct, all that was left was the huge front porch with vine-covered pillars.  I thought that while writing this I would remember the name of the old mansion, but I'm drawing a blank.  We did take a great picture of Mom and Dad's brand new all black Chevrolet Impala parked in front of the columns.  Typical of kids, I enjoyed that part of the trip more than the two days in Disney World.  

Lori, of course, was only interested in the Motel 6 swimming pools.  She discovered diving boards on that trip.  She would jump off the diving board with the inflatable ring around her waist (she was not yet 5, I think).  On one dive, she hit the water and the ring stayed on top and she went under.  Being the responsible big brother, I had to go under and get her.  Mom and Dad didn't seem too concerned, but they did make a quick trip to the closest K-Mart for some floaties that fit around her arms.

When I was in college, I took my first road trip where I was in charge.  I talked a Vietnamese friend, predictably nicknamed Charlie, into skipping his usual Padre Island trip and going with me on a camping trip to the Grand Canyon.  We learned that March is prime snow season in northern New Mexico and northern Arizona.  It did make it easy to find campsites though.  For some reason, we were the only tent campers at each stop.  The drive along I-40 traces the old Route 66 most of the way from Amarillo to Flagstaff.  My first roadside surprise was the Cadillac Ranch.  I knew about it, mostly from the Bruce Springsteen song, but had never seen it.  I searched for a digital photo for this post, but apparently I have only old 35mm prints.  Guess I'll have to make a little side trip next time I go to Texas.  New Mexico was a little boring, except for the blizzard we were driving through.  Then we got to Arizona.

From the moment we crossed the state line and stopped at the rest area beside Chief Yellow Horse's roadside souvenir stand, I was hooked.  Chief Yellow Horse had a big long yellow 1970 Cadillac complete with longhorns on the hood parked out front.  Teepees lined the parking lot and a live buffalo was penned up beside the front door.  Even though I knew that bison and teepees belonged on the plains, not the desert, it was just about the coolest tourist trap I had ever seen.  Well, if you don't count the rattlesnake pit we saw near El Paso on a trip to Juarez when I was really young.


A few years ago, I drove alone from Arlington, Tx to Yellowstone for a quiet 10 day camping vacation.  Most of the drive from Amarillo to the Grand Tetons was boooooooring.  At one point, just outside of Laramie, I could see a shape in the median, probably a mile ahead.  That part of Wyoming is just as flat as the area around Amarillo.  As I got closer, I could start to make out a familiar face.  But it was a face that as far as I could remember had absolutely no connection to Wyoming.  As I got closer, the features became clearer and sure enough, it was a huge statue, or since it was just shoulders up maybe it is technically a bust?  Of Abraham Lincoln.  I had to stop to see what Honest Abe was doing in Wyoming.  The plaque gave absolutely no clue why the statue was there.  It wasn't until I got back home and did some internet research (thank you Al Gore) and learned about the Lincoln Highway.  The Lincoln Highway was the first coast to coast highway in the U.S.  Just as I-40 has stolen the traffic from Route 66, I-80 has taken over the old Lincoln Highway.  I haven't been that far north again, but the Lincoln highway would be a fun exploration.

Other trips have revealed the Wigwam Motel, which I wrote about and posted some photographs this past summer.  I have also seen a castle on a hillside near Abilene, Tx; a five pound apple pie in southern Arizona; the corner in Winslow, Arizona made famous by The Eagles; giant feet with the poem Ozmandias ("look on my works and despair") between Amarillo and Lubbock; the Big Texan where you can get a free 72 oz. steak if you can eat it within an hour, along with a baked potato and salad; the huge cross near Shamrock, Tx; numerous cliff dwellings in Colorado and Arizona; and lots of other cool stuff.

We recently started driving highway 87 between Raton and Clayton, New Mexico, easily the longest and most boring part of our trip from the mountains in Colorado to my hometown of Graham.  On one of the trips, I noticed banners with photographs of Black Jack Ketchum on every corner in Clayton.  I love old west history, but had never heard of Black Jack Ketchum.  Again, with proper homage to Al Gore (is it getting cooler, or is it just me?), I did internet searches to see who he was.  He was a train robber in northern New Mexico and southern Colorado in the late 1880's.  Not exactly as prolific or well know as Jesse James or Butch and Sundance though.  He found a location that he liked just outside of Clayton and robbed the train there three times.  Well, the third time was definitely not a charm.  He got caught.  In the process of being captured, he was shot  in the arm.  Since he was caught in the act, the outcome of his trial was a foregone conclusion.  As soon as he was brought into town, the local hangman weighed him and took all the necessary measurements needed to insure a proper hanging.  Predictably, he was convicted and sentenced to hang for his crime.  Unfortunately, his arm wound got serious, and his arm had to be amputated.  Civilized folks don't hang an unhealthy man.  So he stayed in jail and was very well fed until he got healthy enough to kill.  Well, when hanging time arrived, the hangman did not take new measurements.  Black Jack was now quite a bit heavier and leaned a little more to the left than he used to.  So when the trapdoor opened, Black Jack Ketchum dropped, the rope tightened and his head popped right off his neck and flew into the air!  On my trip last spring, my father in law and I stopped in the Clayton Dairy Queen for lunch.  While getting my self-serve Dr. Pepper at the fountain, I looked at the old photographs decorating the wall.  And right there above the cup lids and straws is a reprint of the photograph of the body of Black Jack Ketchum next to the sheriff who is holding the hooded head of the train robber.  I will definitely not be robbing any trains near Clayton, New Mexico!

Oh yeah, I remembered the Mississippi ruins!  Windsor Castle near Alcorn State University - now I even remember going past the University on our drive.