Departures: NM99: Part 9

Hot links... Where the USA used to stop on Route 66... The One that Got Away...

Breakfast with Dawg Lovers

1999.03.24 WED

The next morning, I walked over the Pecos River on the Bataan Bridge. Imagine my surprise upon finding out that the Pecos river was real.

Carlsbad train station. Sign: "Derail" It seems like bad advice

Pecos River

The Pecos River Cafe, on Canal Street around Bronson, on the site of a former Pizza Hut, served up some flavorful huevos rancheros and some healthy oatmeal. At another table, some people were figuring out how to sell ad space in the local paper. "If we could get McCoy's to say, 'McCoy's salutes:' then we could do the feature and..." Something about a youth page. "Okay, so you'll call up Dean..." If Dean didn't go in for some kind of sponsorship deal, then maybe the feature would have to be dropped. Such is life in the hardscrabble world of Carlsbad journalism.

More interesting was the conversation going on at the table behind me, where some oilfield workers were shooting the breeze. Someone they knew had just bought a car--a custom car, but someone else had specified the custom stuff, their friend was buying it used.

They talked about heading down to Hobbs--there would probably be work there. There would be work there, "...as long as those longhairs would..." "Hey, hey, be careful there," cautioned someone else at their table. I tried not to betray that I'd heard anything. "Huh? Oh, yeah." If only I hadn't been a longhair, maybe I would have heard more about doings in Hobbs.

The oilfield workers' accents were somewhere between Texan and Southern, with a drawl that seemed to stretch like a shadow at sunrise. It was a delight to listen to. They talked about Happy's, a diner South of town--its food was too greasy. They talked about a restaurant where they tended to gather for dinner--it was too expensive, but it was the best thing going; what could you do? Conversation naturally turned to hot dogs. There had once been a Der Wienerschnitzel in the area.

"Oh, was there?"

"You, you'd know. You an' hawt dawgs, you've got, like, a sense or something, you're..."

"Oh! Yeah, they had them chili dawgs."

They spent about five minutes talking about what they liked to order at hot dog places. The foremost dawg enthusiast was a slow talker, and didn't always hold his own in the conversation, but would quietly chime in, saying "chili dawg" or "kraut dawg," savoring the drawl. I could have listened to him say "chili dawg" all day.

They'd been there a while when I showed up, and were still going strong when I regretfully left. I had a bus to catch.

Dig At Roswell

The bus moved through dry desert, low growth on flat ground. As we approached Roswell, irrigated fields appeared with cows munching on them. Later on, Joyce (you haven't met Joyce yet) would tell me that Roswell was dairy country, that they grow alfalfa around there. I wonder where they get the water for it.

If I can claim Big Science as my Faith, then I would extend this metaphor to say that the UFO spotters of Roswell are Heretics. Combining the trappings of Big Science with the hope of wisdom and salvation from on high, they bring in culture and lore which I would classify as apocryphal.

I didn't get off the bus in Roswell. I didn't look at their museum. I leaned back in my seat and kept my eyes on the sky, ready to be proved wrong. I figured that if I saw a UFO, there would be plenty of time to hop off the bus, completely change my worldview, see the sights of Roswell, and re-schedule my trip to Albuquerque. But all I saw was the sky.

Out Of Place

The bus continued through fields. Beside the road, occasional clumps of white stuff gleamed in the sun. I couldn't figure out what it was. Had farmers been leaving out salt for the cattle, accidentally dumping clumps of it into the gutter?

When the bus stopped at Vaughn, I hopped out. While smokers got their desperate puffs, I ran over to a mysterious clump of white stuff on the ground. I put my hand in, touched slushy snow. I looked at my hand stupidly as the hot sun beat down on the shadeless spot. How could there be snow here? Were we following a storm? I looked around at the sun-scorched earth. I sweat in the heat, wondering if I should have brought along my mittens.

Welcome to Albuquerque

Central Avenue in Albuquerque is part of historic Route 66, as you're reminded incessantly while you're there. In the Route's glory days, many motels sprang into existence along it; now they hunker in varying degrees of disrepair advertising low rates.

Scan: The University Lodge did not offer customary toilet sanitization service, but instead a strange process called "cleaning"

I stayed at the University Lodge, ended up paying about $20 a night, and I might have felt like a sucker for paying so much. I didn't feel like a sucker, though. The University Lodge was a nice, clean place. There were cheaper places around, but a lot of them seemed pretty scummy: places where tricks were turned, where drug deals went down, where hygiene was a forgotten art.

Here's an illustrative snippet about an Albuquerque motel I didn't stay at:

The proprietor of the Nob Hill Motel took great pains to make sure I wasn't a bad guy--recording my license plate number, asking if a companion waiting in the car was my wife and demanding a key deposit--then rented me the filthiest room yet.

The defiled, blood-colored carpet was rife with blackish-brown stains. The bedspread was a deep yellow, urine-like color, and it, too, was stained. The medicine cabinet housed a quarter inch of dirt and hair; the cabinet below the sink was worse. There were two items of furniture that were once dressers. Now they had boards nailed over where the drawers once were and served only as end tables. I lay on the bed and nearly sunk to the floor; it felt like being smothered in a corpulent mother's arms (not exactly a bad thing). I turned on the television, cracked open a beer and scratched at the myriad itchy places on my body. There was a refrigerator, sink and stove present, which were in as bad shape as the rest of the room. I spilled some beer on the carpet and, when I went to clean it up, couldn't figure out which stain was mine. I didn't want to touch the door knobs. Only because of the previous two sleepliess nights, I managed to sleep soundly here.

Noah Masterson, "Motel Hell: Seven Nights of Sleaze" article appearing in the Albuquerque Weekly Alibi v.8 #13.

The manager of the University Lodge mentioned his weekly rate, even though I hadn't asked about it. I was going to stay there for just short of two weeks; by mentioning the lower rate, he saved me $150. He made sure I appreciated his honesty: "You be sure to tell all of your friends about this place, about me." Now you know.

Albuquerque: Unexpected Coolness

I started walking along Central Avenue in search of dinner. On the taxi ride to the motel, I'd told the driver, "I think I've seen more good restaurants in the last five minutes than I've seen in the last five days." I'd been right. The area of Central Avenue just East of the UNM campus is downright civilized. There are restaurants, record shops, cafés, even a couple of comic book stores.

Walking past a telephone pole, my sight was arrested by a flyer. L7 was playing in town. I started getting excited until my brain noticed something--L7 had, in fact, played the night before. I'd just missed them. What's more, I'd missed Lost Goat, who had opened. I thought about the day I'd spent just loafing in El Paso, and cursed.

I walked past a record store that seemed to be supporting the local music scene--it had a lot of flyers up with local shows. I poked my head in and asked the clerk if they had a paper with listings of local shows, and he pointed me at the Alibi. I picked up a copy to see if there were any other must-see shows coming up. (There weren't. Man... or Astro-Man? would hit town in a while, but not until after my departure.)

I ended up having some pasta at Double Rainbow, a cafe. In San Francisco, Double Rainbow is a kind of ice cream, a mighty good one. Toy Boat, perhaps the world's best ice cream parlor, serves Double Rainbow ice cream. But Albuquerque's Double Rainbow might be something even better: a café with really good coffee, really good pie, good entrees, and magazines you can read while you eat. I tried to eat there once a day.

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