Via Mafiosi...Back in the 1950's when all these wonderful Eisenhower Interstate Highways were first being built, organized crime in America pretty much controlled the concrete industry, and in a classic case of marketing genius hired Hollywood actresses to claim they wouldn't even consider going to a great destination unless they could ride on "safe" concrete highways. Billions of dollars later, both in construction and in the union fund rip-offs and contractor bribes, we all suffered through the ker-plunk ker-plunk ker-plunk of roads made of a material much more suitable for dams and foundations than for roadways. Hundreds of thousands of miles of these still exist, and the State of Oklahoma is a great proving ground, with about a third of it's principal east-west artery, Interstate 40, still unconverted to asphalt. The reason of course, is expansion joints. Concrete, which is rigid, needs them. Asphalt, which isn't, doesn't. When a car drives over an expansion joint, it leaps slightly, and drops onto the next plate, pushing it down a millionth of an inch or so. So after a million cars...ker-plunk.
Give me a brake...
I think we mentioned a couple chapters back that our faithful MPV was tending to squeak a bit on dewy mornings. Well, my bride has an interesting way of processing information: she ponders things in her sleep and in the morning tells me what kept her awake. I know better than to debate issues presented this way, even though on this day we had the longest single day journey on our itinerary, and no time to waste on silly things like checking brakes. So we stopped in Amarillo, about half way on today's journey, to have the local Mazda dealer take a look and reassure her there were no immediate problems. Four hours, four new brakes, and $675 later, we were back on our way toward Taos, New Mexico, arriving well after dark.
Speaking of dark...
It snowed in Colorado Springs and Denver today, places we'll be arriving at in a week or so. In our travels in eastern New Mexico today, the skies were absolutely scary:
Finally, Taos!
We did, after fourteen hours, reach our Taos destination. Too late (and too cold) to walk the artsy-fartsy streets, but early enough for a fine dinner, margaritas, and to get a good night's rest in our quaint old-fashioned room over the bar (this wasn't originally a "normal" hotel, we suspect) and look forward to tomorrow's journey to the Mesa Verde.
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