September 13, 2010

After a short drive, 400 miles, I arrived at our designated meeting place in Datil, NM, and met Annie Sullivan, a good friend and a best friend of my sister Judy’s. We had soup and salad at the little café. The food was great and the salad was one of the best I have had, full of mixed greens, all types of seeds and nuts and fruit. The soup was homemade beef vegetable. We had a good talk there, and then I followed her up to her place, which is a mile or so back abutting the Cibola National Forest. She lives alone, but is as busy as can be, being a volunteer fireman, working in the small library, and various other areas of interest. Her home is lived in, which I love, and she has a passion for bears, which are all over her home in the form of stuffed and carved, pictures and mugs, etc. She has a dog, Sylvia, who has her own column in the local newspaper, and a cat, which I have not seen, named Gordo. Sylvia also sends out her own Christmas newsletter, telling where “SHE” has been doing. SHE of course is Annie.

Leaving Santa Rosa to come here yesterday, the mesa lands disappeared for a while, and I was driving in the high plains desert. Occasionally I would see cattle grazing, but mostly just very rugged scenery that was flat. What you don’t realize is that you are gradually climbing. The terrain is sandy and rocky, with bushes all over the place and grasses and wild flowers everywhere. The hills started coming into view, with not much more vegetation, and there in the west, rose the mountains that I remembered so well. It was a gorgeous day and the temperature was not in the 90’s at last!

I40 is a truck route, but traffic flowed well, until I was close to Albuquerque, climbing up and then winding down. I noticed a sign “left two lanes closed ahead”, so I moved to the right land. However very few others did the same, and there was a major back up. When I finally got to the cause of the backup, there were the requisite orange cones, and about six men were sweeping the road! Immediately after, the road became three lanes again. The first, and I am sure, not the last traffic jam I will be in on this trip!

On I25 going south, I drove to Socorro, where I called Annie, and gassed up and of course went to the “john”. Annie told me to turn onto Route 60 West and she would meet me at the café. On my ride there, a coyote ran across the road, and I swear he looked both ways before doing so. And off into the brush he ran.

I forgot to mention earlier on that I have passed over the Pecos River – any of you remember Pecos Bill? And I also passed over the Rio Grande River, which is a wide river, but you can walk right across it. And there are a lot of sand bars in it.

Another fact: Datil is Spanish for date. It is said that it got its name from either the seed pods of the broad leafed yucca, or the fruit of the prickly pine cactus, both of which resemble dates.

Since there is no service here for my computer or cell phone, I am putting this on Word and saving it until I can send it.

To be continued –

The next morning – September 14, 2010

Annie’s place is 7,700 feet above sea level. However, as I said before you don’t realize that you are climbing in the high plains, because it is gradual. Of course thee are steep roads, like the one I was on when coming into Albuquerque.
I was out on Annie’s porch going down the steps to my car, when a butterfly flew by me, then settled. It was black, with a big orange dot at the tip of each wing, and a creamy line down each wing. It was beautiful and I had not seen one of those before now. Also a beautiful woodpecker landed on the roof of one of her outbuildings. I am hoping it will return so I can check out its wings, because I think that I have found two in the bird book that resemble the one I saw, but the wing patterns are different.

Yesterday after getting my car organized and cleaned out, since I can’t get into Annie’s truck, I was the driver. We went over to Pie Town, which is about 25 miles west of here, and where the PIE-O-NEER Café is. And of course pie!! Kathy is the owner and the café was closed, but she told Annie to just come in the side door. What great pie she had available. Plum crumble and blueberry. She sat down with us and had a piece also, along with hot tea. Can’t beat it! And Kathy told me the history of Pie Town, which was fascinating. U.S. 60 was just like Route 66, where people coming from the dustbowl and the depression left their homes and headed west. One family stopped in what would become Pie Town, and homesteaded there. More followed. From dried fruit they would make pies, and sell them to those headed west. They also grew pinto beans. And like so many places, word got out about the pies, and people would tell others about the town with the pies, and so it goes. There had been the original café, but when metal became so necessary to the war effort (WWII) all the nails were removed from the café and donated. And of course, the café was dismantled. After the war, it was rebuilt and is the one standing now. Kathy’s mother had been in the restaurant business, and she came to New Mexico, and saw this store for sale, so Kathy helped her buy it. Kathy’s mom ran a full-scale restaurant, breakfast, lunch, and dinner, open every day of the week. Soon Kathy moved up from Texas and began helping. When her mother could no longer manage the restaurant, Kathy took it over, and began cutting down, stopping breakfast all together. She is now open four days a week, and has a limited lunch menu, and always pie – all kinds of pie and it is wonderful! Her biggest problem is finding good help for the summer season.

Annie told me they had just had the Pie Town Festival, which is a big event here, always the second Saturday in September. Kathy said she was making pies and piecrusts for more than a week getting ready for it. And she had a production line going. People were lined up out the door in to get a slice of pie, or lunch. There are several different pie eating contests, both for adults and children. There are pie-making contests. Annie said that the pies are a little smaller than a regular pie, and each pie contestant sits across from a stuffer, because the contestants have to put their hands behind their backs. So the stuffer does what it says, stuffs pie into the mouth of the eater as fast as possible. What a riot! I would have loved to see that.

I fixed omelets for dinner, and we had picked up two salads from the little café I first went to with Annie. Kathy had loaned us a documentary, entirely filmed by the person in it, who is a veteran hiker, and has done the Appalachian Trail, the Continental Divide Trail which crosses U.S. 60 about 20 miles west of here, climbed Mount McKinley, among other things. He decided he would make a thousand mile trek in the Brooks Range way up in Alaska, by himself!! The doc is called ALONE IN ALASKA. It is a wonderful documentary, and he was by himself, but had arranged on his trek to have food drops left for him as he went. What sites he saw, as well as having to double back several times. But he saw lots of grizzlies, wolves, weasels, caribou, and a musk ox, which was huge! Being an experienced outdoorsman, he had prepared himself well. The last four hundred miles was spent in an inflatable boat, going down a river to the ocean. The last drop was a barrel with the boat, paddles, and food in it. I believe it also had a gun, which he did not carry for the first 600 miles!! I highly recommend watching it, if you can find a copy.

It is 10:15 AM here. I don’t know what we are going to do today. But Annie and I are both very laid back, and we have had some really great conversations.

More later… September 16th, 2010,
Remember when I asked, “Who is Deaf Smith”? Here is more information than you might care to read! Erastus “Deaf” Smith was a frontiersman, born in New York state, and going to Texas, when he got ill and his parents felt that he would get better in Texas! Texas you say? Yes, Texas! And in fact “Deaf” did get better although because of the illness he lost some of his hearing, ergo, the name. It is pronounced “Deef” in Texas. He lived from 1787-1837. He was noted in the Texas Revolution, became a Texas Ranger, and was considered a good guide, scout, and spy. He was bi-lingual, married a Tejana, and moved easily between the Texas culture and the Mexican culture. Later, a company called Arrowhead Mills, in Deaf Smith County began making Deaf Smith Peanut Butter, which was very popular in the 1970-1980’s. They still make peanut butter, and I emailed them to find out if this is the same peanut butter, with a name change. Looking at their website, I saw that the products they make have been all natural and organic. I am hoping I get a reply from them. So now, when someone asks you, “Who is Deaf Smith?”, you will know!

Yesterday we went to the VLA site, VERY LARGE ARRAY. This is a very interesting place. It lies between Magdalena and Datil, on the Plains of St. Agustin. There are twenty-seven enormous dishes, each dish the size of a football field. They are in groups of nine, capturing radio waves from space. They can be rotated, but all are aimed at the same area at all times. They are moved on specially made railroad tracks by a specially made engine, when they need to be repaired or placed elsewhere. There was a short movie about them, and a very nice display on them. I finally got the right scoop, as I always thought they were listening for aliens or UFO’s, but that is not the case. They are able to pick up radio signals from different parts of the universe, such as the Milky Way, the sun, some of the planets, and can find out more or add to, what the astronomers have discovered. There is a command center manned 24/7. And scientists all over the world come to the VLA and study. What is really great, is that there are other types of these VLA’s elsewhere in the world and they all share their discoveries.

Then we went to have a late lunch, early dinner, at a restaurant-grocery store-motel-gas station-camping ground, etc. called the Eagle Guest Ranch. It is the meeting spot in Datil for the hunters, campers, townspeople, etc. Bow hunting is going on now, and everywhere you see the requisite camo-clad hunters. It reminded me of Elkton, Virginia this time of year.

Today I am going to the little library with Annie. Actually we are going right now – be back later…Back from the library which is a cute little building which was once a ranger station, right on Route 60. It is called Baldwin Cabin Public Library. With limited space, they try to keep a variety of books on hand, and to also get the latest books. They rely on donations, both books and money, to keep going. Annie is on the Board, and does a lot of work for them. Annie, by the way now writes, among other things, who spent nearly thirty years in New York City taking out major theatrical productions on tour. She was the Production Stage Manager.

After we left the library, we went back to the Eagle Guest Ranch for a luncheon meeting with a group to which Annie belongs. After a very good BLT, they had a guest speaker, a gentleman running for sheriff of the county. He was very well spoken, and he received lots of questions from the group. I sat and knitted my squares at both the library and the meeting. FYI – I am on my third one since I left! Then Annie took me on a little tour of Datil – I saw their three churches, their school, and a very nice campground, which is often used by the locals for picnics and parties. Now we are back here. Tonight, Annie has a meeting at the Volunteer Fire House, and I will get myself packed up and ready to head out tomorrow morning. I should have Wi-Fi tomorrow night and will get this sent off.

Tomorrow I am going to take the back roads to I10, going from Datil, on Route 12 south, to Route 180, down to Lordsburg and the I10. It will be great to be off the beaten path for a day. I am not sure if I will take two or three days to San Diego. Depends on what I want to do. I am going to The Amerind Foundation Museum, which is just off I10, in Dragoon, Arizona. It is a museum of Native American archaeology, art, history and culture. I also plan to drive through Saguaro National Park. Those are the two main things I want to do before hitting SD. There may be more, who knows!

Adieu, Adios, and Mahalo,
I love you all, Sally