Texas Deb Takes a Trip – Day One
Really more for my own, personal reasons, I’ve decided to document the first vacation my husband and I have taken kid free in years. This week we’re going to Crested Butte, Colorado in part, celebrate his 40th birthday.
Today we ventured all the way from the DFW metroplex to Raton, New Mexico. We were running late, of course, but left the kids at my wonderful in-laws late in the morning and hopped, or rather crawled, onto hwy 114. W eventually shot through the Texas panhandle on hwy 287, slowing abruptly from time to time for speed traps in Chilicothe and Claude.
I’m familiar with this road and this way. Warm happy feelings flushed through me when we passed through Dalhart, a little by accident because our GPS wasn’t taking us near a gas station. I saw the Best Western I’d stayed in several summers growing up. It was a waypoint on family trips to camp in Twin Lakes, Colorado. I can remember walking to DQ for supper and ice cream, dust on my shoes and the smell of ranching and trucking in the air, lit up with anticipation for a big camping adventure in the mountains.
Having traveled from North Texas to New Mexico many times as a kid because we had family in Albuquerque, the whole trip really brought back a lot of memories but now that I’m old and introspective I suppose I saw some things in a new light.
I imagined my ancestors, travelling west and looking across the horizon that gradually, over time goes from flat expanse, bold with nowhere to hide, to mountainous heightening adventure.
The horizon gradually begins to undulate and dance, not unlike the waves on the ocean. Glittering with God’s sporadic spotlight of sunshine through the clouds in areas then shifting in dark shadows seemingly close by. The soft green hills spread and curve and begin to reach toward bald, bold, rock faced monuments bearded in bushy green juniper, their features catching filtered sunlight through fleeting rain showers.
Cows graze along the ranch pastures, dark blots from far away and sweet views of mother and child close up, calf and momma.
It’s always exciting when you realize that out there, amongst the green that the collection of blonde rocks just in view isn’t rocks at all, nor white tailed deer but antelope. That’s when you know you’re close.
I think of people on this adventure, many years ago, and I think of my ancestors. I’ve always wanted to know more about them, their history, what they were like, if I or my children favor them even in the least. What I realize is, a lot of the people that moved west and built their homes out of little more than the dirt they stood on, flat plains or curved horizons, may have been less concerned about where they came from and more concerned about where they were going.
There’s a lesson there.
Here in Raton, the dry soapy air, faint with juniper, with wafts of coffee brewing from the hotel lobby, I think of my grandmother. I can smell her on the air and wonder at how someone who grew up in the lush, green environment of Southern Mississippi and Alabama would want to live the latter half of her life in such a State. I understand more as I look at the beauty of the land.
I see mothers and kids everywhere and miss my babies but so far, even on the drive, I have felt so peaceful and relaxed!
