41

El Paso, TX

My, my...weeks later, so much seen and so much to say. All is still very good here on the road. Contributing to the buoyancy of our moods is a steady stream of natural beauty and cultural curiosities. The past two days provided a human highlight with a visit and reconnection with and old hometown friend. I was worried about intruding on the busy daily life of a working man and father of two young boys but my friend was consummate casualness and made us feel right at home.

As it turned out, we arrived at his house the evening of my birthday; a day, which itself, was a manifest gift. We started in the self-proclaimed "world chile capital", Hatch, New Mexico. It looks like a fertile farming part of the Rio Grand valley so you could believe they might grow and process enough chiles to make such a claim. The look of the town, though, echoes with the hollow swish of a swung at and missed marketing opportunity. There are a few scattered signs proclaiming a chile festival on Labor Day weekend but the half of the storefronts that aren't boarded have the have the charm of a December 26th vacant lot enlisted to peddle Christmas trees. Of the half dozen shops that actually seemed to sell chiles and related paraphanalia year-round, we found one (with no posted hours so we sat in front drinking coffee until she opened) in a one-car lean-to off the side of a house. The proprietoress was an old Latina lady who shuffled around muttering "es fria" (it's cold). She wore a grey, ankle length skirt and a grey sweater. With her long grey hair in the dim morning light, she was the perfect ghostly shopkeeper for a town like Hatch.

All misgivings about appearances aside, she did carry a heck of an assortment of chiles both whole and ground. Like the other shops we'd seen, she sold the decorative, strung "ristras" the many New Mexicans hang on their porches for decoration. Most of her shop was devoted to food, though. I bought dried, whole green, flakes of red; hot New Mexican and whole, dried chipotles, the smoked Jalepeno. Paradise... If we weren't paring down to backpacks in three weeks, I'd have left with twenty offerings. Tami noticed that she unexpectedly had flax seeds for sale. I saw some unrecognizable herbs in dusty jars. Given her appearance, I wouldn't have been surprised if she had 'eye of newt' under the counter. All that matters is, I left a happy customer.

At Tami's urging, we headed south and east toward White Sands National Monument. We got back into the truck...put on the darkest sunglasses...and chose a suitable playlist from the I-Pod; some music fitting for a couple hours of desert and mountains. Seventy miles per hour on a thin strip of blacktop with a hybrid of African vocals and downtempo audio production can seem a lot like flying slow and ever-so-close over the desert floor. The space is empty enough that the occasional roadrunner (for real) dashing across our path or the odd, eviscerated motel can spur long spells of contemplation.

We arrived at white sands about mid-day. The monument rests in a long north/south valley flanked on each side by mountains that rise more than a mile above. The sands themselves form dunes of fine, sugar-white crystals sculpted into a merengue by the desert winds. Apart from the stunning, not-of-this-earth beauty; perhaps the nicest thing about the place is how walkable the dunes are. You'd expect sand to be drudgery but near the crest of each dune there is a sweet spot where the sand is compact as flagstone. You can stroll for hours without tiring.

As we were preparing for our stroll into the sand, my attention was subtly (at first) distracted from my lunch. I saw a black form rising against the mountains. Ravens are the most ubiquitous animal we've seen in the Southwest and I thought is was looking at one rising on an air current. Three or four seconds passed and the wings never flapped yet it continued to pull away from the Earth at an angle not far off of vertical. As it rose, it rotated slightly. The smoothness of the motion and the sharp outline made me realize what I was looking at was much more distant and much larger than I'd thought. Then, after a few more seconds, the sound hit. Jet engines reverberating over the desert. In the heart of this still, austere land, I was witnessing my first Stealth jet. It was odd that, in the silent desert, even this machine introduced itself noiselessly. As the noise of the engines washed over us, the plane arced up and away from the ground with the trajectory more of a rocket than a plane. I couldn't help but stare in awe. Stealth are new and rare planes and, from what I could see, they are large. This one was accompanied by a smaller fighter jet that I also initially mistook to be a bird harrying the raven. The Stealth was twice the size of the other jet. We settled back to lunch but, maybe a minute later, we heard engines again. Another Stealth, this one solo, streaked almost straight up. They flew so quickly they were gone from sight in less than a minute. About the time one plane disappeared, another launched. We watched eight rise consecutively. Rocketing from the desert floor was more than a billion tax dollars in just about ten minutes. That's not to mention the fuel, support and training costs. I assume a pilot has to fly for years before getting into one of these. We we seeing a daily occurance?

On this planet, there is very likely no more contrasting example of the demarcation between the collection (extortion) of public resources and the oligarchical direction of their expenditure. I paid for some small part of those craft and, at the same time, I was completely surrounded signs and fencing that stridently warned me I had no right to go near them.

We finished lunch and started walking. Every so often, we'd hear a muted roar. Occasionally, I could spot two F-117's flying wing to wing miles above us. These visions gave rise to rise to different musings than roadrunners and derelict motels. "Top gun" and "protection money", indeed. It was a macabre counterpoint to the joy one might feel on the anniversary of the day of one's entry into this life.

In all, our time in the sand was sublime. We are thinking about returning today.

We got back to the truck and headed southwest toward El Paso. A friend lived there now who I hadn't seen in twenty years. Though I was apprehensive about dropping in, connnecting with friends and family was an overriding motivation for this journey....so we went ahead. We arrived at his home around sunset. Apart from a few shallow wrinkles and a few extra pounds, he hadn't changed a bit. He was clearly happy to see us and granted us the rare pleasure of feeling right at home in a new place. That night and the next we ate, drank beer and caught up.

Tami and I managed to sneak over the border to Juarez, Mexico's fourth largest city. I've been curious about maquilla country (my friend refers to it as "NAFTAnia") since first seeing the exodus of manufacturing from the rust belt. There seems to be an abundance of human energy around El Paso/Jaurez and it is much grittier than other sun belt cities. Working class in the high desert.

Now, we go back north for another look at White Sands. This time, we plan to camp for a night in the backcountry; just us and the dunes. Then, we press east: Hueco Tanks State Park, Carlsbad Caverns National Park, Guadeloupe Mountains National Park, Dallas, Indianapolis, Manchester, MI; NYC...... Then we're down to backpacks and passports.

If you are checking our photos, click the link for the photo site. The newest photos are posted at the end of each album. To see the newest without clicking through older photos, click on the "Last" arrow and work backwards.

XO from the road.