Day Twenty-two - Albuquerque to Lubbock

A happy coincidence, and miles and miles of miles and miles

As it turns out, Maureen Riendeau was in Albuquerque, too, visiting her son Chris and grandson Caleb, star of countless Facebook videos.  Maureen had to fly back to New England the same morning we set off for Lubbock, so we arranged to meet for a while at our Marriott Courtyard lobby.  Naturally, Caleb kept us all entertained.  It was great to see Chris after many years.  He seems to love Albuquerque, so Grandma Maureen has future traveling to do.

Christopher Hamel, Maureen Riendeau, Caleb Hamel and Mary Frances.

Ah, got the little one to smile this time.

After Maureen and family headed for the airport, we headed for Lubbock, Texas.  Now, let me express this in the kindest way possible.  New Mexico is a great state full of wonders; and Texas is, well it's Texas.  But if there are 327 more boring miles in the United States than route 40 from Albuquerque to Santa Rosa, and Route 84 from Santa Rosa to Lubbock, I have never seen them.  Most of it is two lanes and no median, so the speed limit is a measly 65 miles per hour.  That may not seem measly in New England, but out here where there may be miles between two sagebrush plants, it's tedious.  If it weren't for the occasional terror of seeing two semis in passing mode using the entire road ahead of you, there'd be no fun at all.

Copy this image.  Then, when you plan your next trip around the country,
make absolutely sure this route is not on your agenda.

Here is perhaps the most interesting thing along this route.  Actually, there were lots and lots of grain elevators, but taking pictures of different ones all over the place didn't seem worthwhile.

Not positive, but this grain elevator might have been in
Muleshoe, Texas.  Or Sudan, or Taiban, or Texico, New
Mexico.  Or one of the other towns along the way.

OK, the same one, just closer.  Whenever I see grain
elevators, I think of William Inge's play, Picnic.

Roadside grief

Miles and miles of nothing but miles and miles can have two effects: daydreaming or sleeping.  Since I was driving, mine was the daydreaming function, while Mary Frances chose the latter option for part of the voyage.  What I was thinking about was this:  in the 5500 miles or so of this adventure, we have seen between 100 and 200 or these:

A day doesn't go by, whether on one of our cross-country adventures,
or just driving around home, that we don't see something like this.

I've got lots of questions about these roadside memorials.  First of all, there are 3,980,817 miles of roads in the United States.  Auto accident deaths in the United States total about 1 for every 100 miles of roadway.  Does this mean the roads we've traveled are twice as dangerous as average?  

OK, we can understand that grieving takes many forms, and would not challenge the pain the families feel when lives are lost on roadways.  But...why?  If Uncle Dave dies in a hospital room, is there a cross or some other religious icon placed there?  If Aunt Elsie expires after one too many sets of tennis, do we place a marker on the court?  It only seems to be on the roads where someone succumbed to his fate with an automobile involved.  Is the victim not interred elsewhere, in a cemetery, perhaps?  To pay them homage, do we visit there, or the roadside marker, or both?  

Crass it may seem, but if I don't know the person involved, I'm not likely to shed many tears.  Then, who is the marker directed at?  Is it there to punish the victim's family, or at least to make them cry as they pass by?

I don't want to make light of the sorrow of those who have lost loved ones in automobile and motorcycle accidents.  But I just don't understand the roadside markers.  And I'd appreciate any help with that.

Ah, Texas!

Ok, we spotted this as we entered Farland, Texas, but I was hoping for something a little more welcoming:

Actually, this is pretty nice, if not a Welcome sign.

A mile or so later, it was more the expected kind of welcome:

If we can say anything about Texas that we couldn't say about New Mexico, it escapes me so far.  The 100 miles or so that we drove to reach our hotel was pretty much a repeat of the last 200 miles of New Mexico.  We reached our destination, Residence Inn, enjoyed some "breakfast at dinnertime" nosh at their Gatehouse, poured ten or fifteen draft beers at their non-working keg, to end up with a glass or two of beer, while our laundry was working in its various machines.

I shouldn't be negative.  Any day lived through with my bride is a good day, and reaching the destination we planned more than a month ago is an accomplishment.  Tomorrow we plan to see some of our best friends ever, and all we have to do to accomplish that is to cross another 400 miles of Texas.