CACTUS! That’s a cactus!! .... So is that!!

The bikers were gone when we woke up the next morning, or at least by the time we left. I may have shared the elevator with one on my way down to breakfast, but that guy could have also been a business man in a do-rag and faded jeans. Who knows? We knew we did not have a ton of driving to do that day (Amarillo to Roswell was only about four hours), so we had no problem getting a later start than usual.

The first stop on our agenda was The Cadillac Ranch. Have you ever heard of it? Have you seen the movie Cars? If so, you have seen the Cadillac Ranch in animated form.



Here’s a little information on the topic. Stanley Marsh 3 (he thinks using the roman numerals III is too pretentious) is a helium millionaire. In 1974 he got together with a San Francisco art collective called The Ant Farm and assembled this roadside art exhibition. Ten Cadillac’s have been planted in the ground just off of I-40 (between exits 60 and 62) nose down. It is said to represent the “Golden Age” of the American Automobile (1949 to 1963). In 1997 the attraction had to be moved two miles west because of encroaching development. If you see pictures of these cars you will see that they have been tagged all to hell. Marsh actually encourages people to graffiti the cars. It’s sort of like an ongoing art project collaborated on by everyone who visits it. Upon reading about the place online I announced to Toto and Josh that we would be stopping and buying spray paint. Toto thought this a hilariously wonderful idea. I ended up with neon orange, Toto got yellow and Josh got metallic gold. We had a blast. Josh wrote PV2 Newberry on EVERYTHING he could get his hands on. He also wrote the Cavalry slogan “If you aint Cav, you aint shit” all over things.



I took a more artistic approach to it. I found a good spot (the underside of a trunk) and borrowed Toto’s yellow. I wrote “PDX OR 2010” in huge yellow letters outlined in neon orange. It looked pretty cool.



Toto marked her turf a few times on different cars as well. I ended up climbing up into the empty trunk of one of the cars and creating a Newberry family crest. Other people’s artistic ventures were evident as well, and out of respect had been left alone.



When we were done at the ranch, we piled in the car and headed south to Roswell. Along the way we stopped at a dairy queen for swirl cones. Guess what? No swirl cones. I swear the ice cream gods HATE me. So we settled for chocolate dipped vanilla cones. I had never had a dipped cone before, and let me tell you, never having one again. I did not enjoy it one bit. The ice cream was all leaky through the chocolate, and the chocolate left a fatty greasy film on the roof of my mouth, it was just a bad experience all around.



Somewhere east of the New Mexico, Texas border there is a small town called Hereford. Most of my childhood we had a Hereford cow named Sis. My dad had her before he had me. So going through the town of Hereford had more significance to the three of us than it would ever have to anyone else. So we stopped and took a picture with the town’s mascot (right in front of the police station, so I refrained from climbing on it).



We crossed the border into New Mexico and with the new state came the most amazing weather of the trip (Shea, this is for you): 80 degrees, sunny with puffy clouds in the sky, and it was DRY HEAT for a change! The open road was ahead of us and we had John Denver going on the stereo. I was in heaven!! After taking a few pictures of me enjoying the amazing weather, I nodded off to sleep (so did Josh) until Toto woke us up with the words “guys, we’re in Roswell.” That got my attention.



Roswell, NM is the site of a rather infamous incident of alleged extraterrestrial activity. For those of you who have known me a while, you probably know that I am a total X-Files nerd. So, Roswell was somewhere I wanted to see. We got there a little too late to see the main attraction downtown, so we went into a bunch of little shops instead.



The first one we went to was a little place called “Gifts from the Angels” or something hoaky like that. The guy behind the counter was a total loony. I bought a shot glass and a post card and he then reported a bunch of “facts” about alien visitations he knew. I feel a clarification coming on: while I am a total X-files nerd, I do not believe in little grey guys with big heads, three fingers, and flying saucers. I don’t think that there is any way that we are the ONLY intelligent life forms in the entire universe, but I don’t buy into the standard depiction of aliens and their space crafts. Anyways! So he tried to talk to us about all this stuff and we’re backing towards the door and I thought I was going to get abducted right then and there. Thankfully Toto has mastered the art of ending unwanted conversations. After that, we wandered down the street and found a few other things in a few other shops. We discovered in one of the shops, that there was actually a beer brewed near by that went with the whole alien theme, so we went in search of it. Did you know Walgreen's in New Mexico has a liquor store inside of it? So Toto bought the beer and I discovered David brand sunflower seeds (not that this is a HUGE discovery, but still it hadn't occurred to me before) and bought them. See, Fox Mulder LOVES to chew on sunflower seeds, and I am pretty sure that David is the brand you see in The X-Files the most. And the actor who plays Fox Mulder is David Duchoveny. So it all went very well together. Then we headed back to the hotel. We ate dinner and I updated the photos on facebook (while channeling Mulder). It was a pretty lazy and relaxing night, which was nice after running ourselves ragged for the previous few days. Nothing profoundly wonderful happened that day.

As an aside, if you are wondering about how the title ties in with this day of blog, it happened between the glorious weather and the nap. We were trucking along the highway, and all of a sudden I realized that there were cacti all over the side of the road. So I yelled "CACTUS!! That's a cactus!!" then there was a slight pause, and then I yelled, "SO IS THAT!!" It was funny because these cacti had been along the road for at least a half an hour, or so Josh says.

Playlist
John Denver
Garth Brooks