4/3/16, “The
Return Journey” (Or: “Deja Vu")
Albquerque,
New Mexico (Old Town)
Fourteen
months ago, sitting in this gazebo, in this exact spot, as my first trip to New
Mexico last year came to a close, I wrote about my love affair with the
Southwest. I wrote about this was truly
the land of enchantment. This is my
third trip to New Mexico in fourteen months.
It is no less enchanting the third time than it was the first time. I love the Southwest no less now than I did
then. I am even wearing the exact same
suit as I wore last time, maybe even the same shirt. I am experiencing a strong sense of déjà
vu.
Typically I would simply call the
last Day of a trip “The Return Journey,” but I feel a need to subtitle it for
numerous reasons, in no small part because I returned to three places today
that I had previously visited, not even counting the airport. When I first sat here fourteen months ago, it
was because I wanted to have a cigar and write my entry, but my laptop’s
battery was almost dead. The gazebo had
an electrical outlet, making the only place where I could have my cigar and
charge my laptop. I have a more portable
laptop now, so I don’t need the electricity, but I am still smoking my cigar by
the outlet as I write my entry.
It has
been a long and exhausting day, but we have an hour before we need to be at the
airport, so I have at least half an hour to write this entry, maybe a little
more. The agenda I had set for today had
us visiting what I had thought were three new National Park Sites for me:
Petroglyph, El Malpais, and El Morro National Monuments. We went to sleep almost as soon as I had finished
my pipe last night and closed my entry.
Around 5 AM, the smoke detector in the room went off. I got out of bed. I smelled smoke. Fuck.
I woke up Frankie and started to gather my stuff. If there was a fire, we’d just hit the road
and get breakfast on the way. Then, I started to realize the smell of smoke was
probably from last night’s pipe. After
four beeps, the smoke detector stopped beating.
We went back to sleep for an hour before waking up to my phone’s
alarm. We got ready and headed down to
breakfast, much the same as yesterday’s breakfast. The time crunch would be getting to the third
NPS before they closed the trail at 4 PM.
We left the hotel at 7:30 AM, and it would only be a total of five and a
half hours of driving, or so I thought, which would have left us an hour for
lunch and an hour at each of the first two sites. I did not anticipating needing the full hour
for any of those three activities. I lit
up a Fratello for the first part of the drive, and then we stopped for
gas.
I lit up a Hoyo de Flores for the
balance of the drive, and I still had some cigar left when we got to the
VC. This seemed very familiar. I was getting a sense of déjà vu. I wondered aloud if I had been there
before. No, I didn’t think so. I even checked my social media and blog post
from my last trip. No sign of having
been there. The VC did not seem
familiar. I got my pin and my stamped brochure,
and we headed to the trail. The sense of
déjà vu got stronger when we got to the parking lot. It looked very familiar. I then realized I had visited it on my first
trip to New Mexico last year, not my last one.
I found the picture. It had been
at the very beginning of my first trip, when I was at the height of my moping,
so of course the memory was fuzzy. That,
after visiting 245 NPSs, they all start to blur together. Well, we were here, we had plenty of time,
and Frankie had never been here, so we hiked up the trail. We got to the top and recreated the
ceremonial picture I took fourteen months ago.
I put the next stop, El Malpais NM, into the GPS, and we stopped at a
Dairy Queen for lunch on the way, just like I had lunch at Dairy Queen last
year on the last day of my last trip to New Mexico. I had the same thing as I had last time, a
chicken strip basket and a Blizzard. We
made our way to El Malpais NM, or rather, the address that the NPS website had
for the site. It was a repurposed VC,
where I got my stamp and a free pin. The
actual site was about 30 miles away. Fuck!
That would mess up my timing. If
we had to go 30 minutes there and 30 minutes back, that hour could be fatal to
my timing.
Fortunately, it turned out
that the 30 minutes was actually on the way to the next site. In other words, it was 30 minutes to the
monument, then just another 30 minutes to the next site. That was perfect. It would give us extra time to explore the
sites, should we choose. We would only
be limited by the amount of hiking our bodies could handle. When we got to the parking lot for the first
trailhead for El Malpais NM, we were completely off the grid. We lit up a pair of Casa Magna cigars and
wondered around a bit. The trail was
like 7 miles, so we weren’t going to do that, but we enjoyed looking at the
volcanic rock in the area.
We continued
down the road, stopping at the VC for El Malpais, which confirmed that El Morro
NM, both the VC and the trailhead, was only half an hour away. We were great for time. We headed straight to El Morro NM. I did my business at the VC there, and we
learned about the hiking options. There
was a half-mile trail and one that was a mile and a half. We could start on the shorter trail and make
our mind. There were beautiful mountain
views along the way and we finished our cigars on the trail, taking plenty of
ceremonial pictures. There were
petroglyphs and inscriptions on the rock formations, so it had as much cultural
value as natural. By the time we
finished the shorter trail, we were too exhausted to go any further, so I gave
Frankie the keys, and we headed back to the car.
I put the restaurant into the GPS and took a
nap. When I woke up, we were back on the
grid, so I got caught up with my social media postings and messages. My friend Pete was going to meeting us at the
restaurant with his girlfriend. Pete is
the brother of one of my best friends, but I would consider Pete a friend on
his own. We have crashed at each other’s
places and shared numerous meals together, and we are connected on pretty much
every form of social media. The
restaurant, El Pinto, is considered New Mexico’s “most iconic” restaurant and
is one of the best Mexican restaurants in the country. It was where I had my last meal during my
last trip to New Mexico last year. I lit
up an Ardor for the ride to the restaurant, and we were there within an
hour.
I put our name down for a table,
and the table was ready not long after Pete and his girlfriend arrived. It was good seeing him again. I was only interested in two things on the
menu, their two most famous items: nachos and red chili ribs. I got half portions of both, which wound up
being too much food. Way too much
food. We had a round of drinks, the
three guys getting their famous margaritas, while Pete’s girlfriend had a glass
of wine. We talked and joked during the
meal, Frankie and Pete having similar jobs found a lot to discuss.
When the food came, I was shocked. Either “half” portion looked like a full
meal. I struggled to eat both
plates. I failed. I was overstuffed from eating what I did
manage to eat. After the meal, Pete and I
talked about when we’d next see each other in New York, and then we all went
outside to say our goodbyes. Frankie and
I drove to Old Town, and I parked on the same block I parked on fourteen months
ago, maybe even the same spot. I went to
the same gift shop as last time and sat down in the familiar gazebo, where I
lit up my Avo and proceeded to write this entry, which I will now close so that
we can start to make our way to the airport.
Albuquerque
International Sunport, New Mexico (ABQ)
For the third
time now in fourteen months I have sat at this gate, waiting to board Jetblue
Flight 66 back to New Mexico. My usual
bench is in use, though it appears it might actually be about to free up. If it does, I will switch over to it.
Ah, yes, got
it. Three times I have sat on this bench
in the past fourteen months. I suppose I will take more journey to New
Mexico to allow me to say “New Mexico complete” before I turn 30. In the fall of 2013, I was supposed to take a
trip to the Southwest. It would have
been a 10-day trip, and I would have said “Southwest Complete” by the end of
the trip. It was going to be an epic
trip, probably a top five trip of all time.
Then, the unthinkable happened.
The government shutdown a few days before I was scheduled to leave. I was crushed. It ruined my whole trip. I could not visit National Park Sites if the
federal government had shut down. I
still went to Dallas for the weekend, but I had to cancel the bulk of the
trip.
I repurposed the funds to other
trips, and I went to Panama instead the following weekend. While that cancellation cost me Southwest
Complete, it enabled me to accomplish other travel goals more easily. Later in the month I went to Phoenix and saw
the National Parks there. I stayed with
a friend in Phoenix, and I planned to make it an annual trip to knock off
Arizona complete. Instead, I wound up becoming
very close friends with Connor, who’s from New Mexico. It is now looking like I will say “New Mexico
Complete” before I say “Arizona Complete”, and saying “Southwest Complete”
became a 40 Goal, instead of a 30 Goal, though I now hope to visit every NPS
and state capitol (in other words, each state “complete”) by the time I turn
40.
My affinity towards the Southwest
has not diminished, though I still lament not having been able to take that epic
trip, in no small part because it was going to be the last epic NPS run that I
would have ever done on a trip that spanned two weekends. There will never be another one. I will knock off the remaining sites on 2-,
3-, or 4-day trips, unless I do a cross-country road trip with friends one day,
but that wouldn’t be an NPS run.
Somehow, sitting on this bench better embodies the drastic change in my
travel methodology that resulted after having to cancel that trip.
Alright, so after I closed in Old Town, I
finished my cigar, and we headed to the airport, stopping for gas and to clean
up the car. I returned the car, and we
went to the terminal, where there was no line for security. I headed to the gate, only to find my usual
bench occupied, so I chose another one with a similar view, where I sat down
and proceeded to write this entry. I
then moved to my familiar bench, where I proceeded to finish this entry, which
I will now close, along with closing outing this trip. Next stop: Antwerp to see the 1920 Olympic
Stadium and possibly a stop in Bruges.
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