I hadn’t planned on visiting Roswell, it seemed too much “on the beaten path,” and I thought I had already been there. I ended up there because any other direction was going to require a much longer drive than my “target” of a maximum of 180 miles a day or they were too close, and it looked like my choices would all end up in yet another soon-to-be ghost town. I was getting a bit tired of dusty, depressing towns without places to eat. It turned out that I hadn’t been there, instead I had visited a tiny town near the gate to Area 51 – I had mistaken it for being Roswell, which is actually about 30 miles from that fat spot on the road. The place I had visited consisted of a bar/restaurant where pilots and scientists working at Area 51 relax at the end of the day.

Roswell is a large, vibrant (in comparison to my previous few day’s experiences) community of perhaps 60,000 folks. On the morning of this leg of my trip I made reservations in yet another Best Western on Main Street in Roswell. I have been finding that Best Westerns are often my choice because they are toward the lower priced places that I can depend upon being at least “ok.” They usually (perhaps always) offer a complementary breakfast of yucky scrambled eggs, greasy bacon and/or sausage, bland fried potatoes, coffee, cheap rolls, juice and a couple of type of fruit. Not very good, but plentiful and free. Breakfast is to be found in a sterile little room with a few other silent travelers. I find the whole breakfast event to be rather depressing – but often it is the only choice in town, and it saves me $20 or so for the breakfast that I would really like. It is much better than my breakfast at home where I usually have a bowl of granola and a cup of instant coffee – so I am not complaining. It turns out that I often don’t get around to eating the BW breakfast until late in the morning, meaning I can skip lunch and have an early dinner – another $20 saved. This results in the room only costing something like $50 when savings on meals are factored in.

I have acquired a “normal” pattern when I roll into a new town. My first task is to find my motel. (I am now finding it best to make reservations in the morning before I set out on my adventure. This gives me a chance to search the options on Expedia or similar web site, and then call the property directly to make sure of availability of a room and quiz them about the availability of restaurants.) After locating my lodging for the night, I take a driving tour around town in an attempt to find the “town” (if there is any), locate places to eat and/or drink, and just get the lay of the land. I did that in Roswell and found that while it is a large town, there really isn’t much of a “town” there. It is mostly residential areas and a cluster of mall type businesses and hotels on Main Street shared by the main highway.

There is a small “historical district” that clearly used to be the “town.” It has old, now converted, movie theaters, restaurants, banks and other businesses. Now they are almost all stores catering to the “alien tourist” trade. The historical district consists mostly of stores selling alien trinkets, the international alien museum, rock shops, sellers of incense and “hippy” clothes, art consignment stores, and an eclectic store full of “antiques” (old junk) – odd places that might lure in those that like to fantasize about aliens and such. I read that the alien tourist trade brings in about $16 million a year to the town, so all of these weird little businesses are tolerated by the city. Statues, images and illusions to aliens are everywhere in town.

I ended up leaving a bit of money in that district as there were a few things that just couldn’t be passed up.

I went into a UFO store and found a large selection of books on the topic, one of which I already owned and found pretty thought provoking. I asked the sales clerk which one he thought had the most “truthful” story. He handed me the The Ultimate Guide to the Roswell UFO Crash. After asking for his assistance I felt sort of obligated to purchase it for $22.44. Is there a hidden meaning in such an odd price? It consists of brief discussions of things that transpired during the weeks of June 1947, along with GPS coordinates and QR codes for the locations where these events took place. They are interesting little stories.

I stepped into an art consignment store were a dozen or so local artists display their wares. I was very impressed with many of the paintings. They seemed quite good to me – but out of my price range and besides I don’t want to start cluttering my already filled car with more stuff. However, I did get to talking with one of the artists who managed to get me to admit that I am wandering the country and hopefully trying my hand at drawing simple illustrations as a total amateur. She showed me a kids book that she had illustrated, suggesting that her very simple sketches (as if done by an 11 year old boy) might give me some inspiration. I purchased the book.

Soon after buying that book I wandered into a store selling rocks, crystals and things like that. I noticed a large pile of geodes selling for between $10 to $35 each, depending upon weight. That got me into telling the clerk about my experience in the southeast corner of the Mojave Desert where I came upon a large area filled with geodes that one of the members of our group of friends returned to after the trip and took all of geodes for himself. He didn’t leave any behind for anyone else to appreciate, and didn’t offer any of them to those on the trip that showed him where they were located. Just goes to show, if something is important to you be very careful about letting others have access to it – they just might end up taking it for themselves. That story led me to continuing on and telling him the story of my father and my encounter of the third kind with aliens in that part of the desert. The clerk seemed pleased with the story and said that something must be happening with the alignment of the moon because I wasn’t the first person to wander in with personal stories of encounters with aliens.

While wandering down the street looking into store windows I was stopped by guy about my age. He wanted to talk about his trip driving around the USA taking his time and just looking at things. We shared stories of our experiences for a few minutes while standing on the sidewalk. This was perhaps the fourth or fifth time in the last two weeks that someone wanted to tell me that they are doing the exact same thing as I am. The country must be swarming with old hippies (or those who wanted to be hippies) drifting around taking it all in, trying to learn to stop and smell the roses. They are dropping dollops of money in lots of little back country, out of the way, places. It seems like a good thing, one that many people are compelled to do when their life changes by things like retirement or the loss of a partner.

I didn’t want to eat lunch at any of the fast food places on main street, and was unable to find anything in the historical district, so I headed out to where the old silos and abandoned wool mills were located on the “other” side of the tracks. I found a cafe directly across the street from the farm supply store called Cowboy Cafe with giant pickups in the parking lot. That seemed right up my alley as a likely place for encountering the local folks. As usual, all heads turned toward me when I walked in, but once they decided I was harmless they went back to the discussions and meals. It was a nice hometown cafe, full of people that obviously work with their hands in the outdoors. I ordered a pork chop and fixin’s. The windows had amazing temporary art painted on the glass. I think it is temporary because the paintings were actually on the outside of the windows, exposed to the weather – but the view was from the inside. They all showed scenes of the surrounding desert during dusk, with dark storm clouds in the background and cowboys doing various things, one was squatting by a fire cooking his dinner, another was sitting on a horse, things like that. The amazing part was how the light from outside lit up the scenes to create just the right mood. They were crudely done, perhaps with a sponge – ragged and unfinished around the edges, but I found them to capture the solitude and beauty of the desert.

About the time that I was finishing up my meal a tall, “macho” cowboy came in. He was wearing his big cowboy hat, giant belt buckle on his levi’s, and had a bit of a swagger. He sat down in a booth where he could see me and expressed deep, visceral hate. If looks could kill, that was what he would have done. The feeling of anger and hate just wrapped him in a cloud of nasty. It was a brief glance, and he quickly looked back to the others at the table, but it is very clear and obvious. Instead of being frightened, my reaction surprised me to be more along the lines of compassion – how very sad to spend your life living full of hate and anger. That must feel terrible. I soon got up and left without incident, but my sorrow for folks that live in such pain stayed for the rest of the day. I think there is a lot of that out here in the land of the deeply religious, deeply conservative countryside.

The proprietors in my Duncan hotel suggested that a nice drive might be north to the town of Quemado, New Mexico. They suggested a little hotel/motel that had an attached restaurant, making it an easy and comfortable stop. It was a lot trip getting there, up into the high desert regions of open juniper trees and short greyish grass. It was pretty, but very isolated. It turned out that the restaurant was closed due to a graduation, and there were no more in the town – and no saloons. Dinner ended up being a handful of trail mix and a few pieces of jerky. Luckily I had some food along. The gas station sold beer, so I was set for the night. The room was very nice – large, clean, and comfortable. However, when I ran water in the bathroom sink it came out dark, blood red! I flushed the toilet to see if perhaps it was just the sink – the toilet bowl filled with the same horrible looking water. I wondered out my morning shower was going to work out. Somehow, it was miraculously clean in the morning – weird and gross.

About the only thing of interest that I could find it town was this larger than lifesize bull in all of its glory. Other than that, I was in yet another ghost town in the making. But this time I was unable to find anyone to talk to. That gave me a little time to find, and make, visual content.

Yesterday was an interesting trip from Tucson to Duncan, Arizona. I was unable to find my normal “back roads” for the first hundred miles or so, traveling on Interstate 10 instead. This part of the trip was singularly boring – the background hills passing by while almost all of my attention was on integrating safely with the many trucks weaving back and forth between lanes. I find these times on the freeways to be boring, uncomfortable, and just work instead of play.

However, I finally got off the freeway and onto a smaller major highway headed north to Safford where I hoped to get lunch, an air filter for my car, and perhaps some CD music for those long stretches without radio reception. I found a music store in town, but upon entering discovered that it is a musical instrument stored, but the fellow at the counter was very helpful in pointing out that there was no place in town selling CD’s except perhaps the Goodwill store down the block. I went there are found a few baskets of very old, very worn CDs that might be useful or interesting. Nothing that I recognized, but maybe worth a try at $0.50 each. I’ll give them a try next time I am traveling though nowhere on the backroads.

Across the street from the Goodwill store is a small diner, so that seemed like as good a choice as any. Looking through the window I could see two small tables and a couple of staff. It turned out to be a meeting of perhaps 6 or 8 staff members for the tiny restaurant. It became immediately obvious that most of the staff were quite disabled, a couple of Down syndrome folks and others with speech and other problems. They were all quite eager to assist me, but were limited to bringing water and silverware. The “boss” came for my order and directed activities. I ordered 1/2 a roast beef sandwich, chips and a drink – it was fine, nothing special but met my needs. I found the experience to be a mix of sad that these folks have such difficulties, and thrilled that someone was being so kind and generous to give them a hand. I was the only customer at what should have been the “rush hour.”

Safford is situated near the center of a large, wide valley. I could see little reason for a large town in that spot, I didn’t see much agriculture and it wasn’t clear that there was a source of income, but I guessed that mining must be close by. My guess was correct, there are large copper mines in the vicinity and apparently that fuels most of the economy. I noticed quiet a few unusual things during my brief stay. I saw several people missing arms, hands and legs. Perhaps from mining accidents?? I also noticed quite a few folks in exaggerated cowboy hats, bib overalls, and a rather “down home” way of walking and talking. Not like those that I saw in Tucson. Clearly I am heading in much more rural territory. This all made me happy – finally people just being people, not putting on a show for others.

I am staying at an old, recently “renovated” (returned to something close to original). It is furnished in a way that feels like you are in the proprietor’s home (which is almost certainly the case), eclectic and charming. LOTS of paintings on the walls, comfortable chairs and couches for lounging, real books on the book shelves – and almost no contact with the owner in an official sort of way. I didn’t check in, just shown to my room. I asked about this arrangement and was told that I could just pay when I leave. So much for formality. Later in the afternoon I ventured into their backyard garden/wild space filled with plants, a running fountain, and more art. Nice. I got into a conversation with Deborah (the female half of the owners) about my background, and a tiny bit about there moving here to get out of the hustle and bustle of big cities – they certainly succeeded in that. The conversation touched on the Challenger accident – when I came in after dinner I found a book titled “Visual Explanations” with my name on it waiting on the dining room table. It was bookmarked to the section discussing how the poor visual representation of the susceptibility of the o-rings to low temperature led to the decision to launch even in the face of warnings that it was unsafe to do so. It is an interesting story to add to my understanding of how things can go wrong.

Soon after arriving in town at around 2:00 I went looking for a bar to get a nice cold beer. Turned out that the Riverfront Lounge is about 100 feet from the hotel, an easy walk. I suppose this bar is better called a saloon given the nature of the town, but “lounge” seems a bit out of place too. When I opened the door, all eyes were upon me. Four guys and a woman seated at the bar, and a lady bartender. I did my best to act nonchalant, settled at the bar and order an 805 beer (after noticing an advertisement for same on the wall). One of the guys piped up and said he had a 38 in his pickup that could sort out any questions. Great – within the first minute they are talk about guns, violence – and me. Then he continued with by saying that his 38 could solve some of the immigration problem at the border, just need to go down there and kill a few of them. Holly cow! What have I walked into.

However, things quickly settled down, we bought each other beers, and the discussion became friendly. He said he didn’t really have a 38 in his car, he keeps it at home. It was a funny sort of situation, one I have experienced on many occasions when walking uninvited into other people’s territory. There is often this kind of challenge, exaggerated threats and masculine banter. It is a kind of test. If I can withstand the test and not lose my nerve it almost always turns into a good time and friendly relationship – but it has to go through the test of fire first.

I had two beers (one of which was bought by the guy with the gun), and went up the street for dinner at the steak house. It was a nice, pleasant, place with lots of local “color” in the other customers. I had to chuckle to myself because the scene could have been taken exactly from some of those “old west” paintings – down to the giant cowboy hats and all that. It was perfect!

I finished dinner just about dusk and was headed on my way home when I heard a big; “Charlie, come on over here!” There were two people sitting at a picnic table outside of two big fifth-wheel mobil homes. One was Earl, the friendly guy sitting next to me at the “lounge,” and the pretty bar tender lady. They were sitting outside enjoying the pretty evening, chatting with their favorite drinks. They asked me to join them, which I did without hesitation. They got me a beer and started to “yarn” a bit.

Once they found out that I am being a bit of a vagabond, Earl started telling us (me, I think she had heard them all many times before) about his life as a drifter. His roots seem to be in Duncan, but they get pretty stretched out sometimes. He started hitch hiking at about the age of 13 – traveling to Florida – and never really stopped. He told about living for more than a month under a tree in the parking lot of a service organization (sorry, I can’t recall which one right now) because he got food and they offered drinks. His stories of his travels around the country hitchhiking, riding the rails and living under trees in parking lots made me think that I had perhaps come upon the real King of the Road. And then he would come back to Duncan for while, until the itchy feet got the better of him and off he would go. The bar tender nodded her head that stories are true, and that he is perhaps one of the happiest guys in the country. Not “down and out” because of necessity, but instead for choice. She was so sweet and caring about him that I wonder if perhaps she is his daughter. She told me that she looks after the group of guys that I met in the lounge earlier. The table and space between the trailers becomes a kind of gathering place for old friends on nights when the weather is good – which is most nights. Others started to drift in just about the time that I felt I had worn out my welcome and headed back to my hotel. It was an altogether heart warming, and loving, evening.

I was having so much fun in Duncan that I tried to extend my stay, but the town was booked up for the weekend – it is a destination for groups of motorcycle tourist and others. It is “on the way” and while close to being a ghost town, still has lots of “juice” provided by my new friends, the proprietors of my hotel, and others. I found it to be a real treat, perhaps it will end up being a high point on my trip. I suppose I should have found a place to park my car and try out my new bed in the Subaru. Oh well, live and learn. Now that I am five hundred miles away I realize that I should have been more determined to stay – afterall that is exactly the reason that I fixed up my car to stay in it if needed. I am positive that someone would have given me a place to park for a night or two.

Part of my journey includes an extremely generous offer to visit the mirror lab at the University of Arizona. This is the place where many of the largest, and most complex, telescope mirrors are designed and built. For a technology nerd such as myself this is an amazing, not to be missed, offer. However, when planning for my trip it was not certain exactly when this tour could take place, so instead of worrying too much about it I just booked a hotel room for a few days that bracketed the likely available times. I arrived in Tucson last Sunday, the tour is today (Wednesday) and I’ll continue my journey toward the east tomorrow morning. This has opened up a nice time to rest after days of driving, being a pleasant opportunity to relax and take time to “smell the roses.”

My hotel selection is a bit different than I envisioned. Rather than a high rise, environmental enclosed retreat from the “world out there”, this hotel is what I would call a motel – built in 1972 to service the automobile travelers by providing three long lines of side-by-side rooms with parking right in front of your door. When I leave my room it is to the outdoors, not a hall in a big building. Going to get my breakfast (a bowl of mush with options for things like raisins, banana chips, various types of seeds, etc) I walk through the parking lot. While Hotel McCoy has small rooms, funky decor, and limited services it also has the feeling of remaining connected to nature (even though it is located almost under a large network of elevated freeways that disconnected the motel from “normal” traffic flows). Given the choice, I choose staying connected to the environment – and actually use the pool because it is a comfortable and accessible feature open to the sky with interesting guests hanging around and talking. If you have been following along you realize that I was a bit skeptical about this hotel when I arrived, but have grown rather fond of it. I get all that I need without a lot of the “plastic” feeling of a normal hotel. It is comfortable and friendly, hard to ask for much more.

I haven’t felt like doing much in Tucson. I went out to take a tour of the old Titan Missile silo and defunct missile. I have been around these sorts of hardware enough to find it pretty “ho hum” – yep, a big missile in an underground building painted all green inside (to keep the crew calm). Not dissimilar to a ship or submarine. Just a big steel place with the plumbing exposed and low headroom walkways. I see the need for that in submarines but why limit the headroom for a building that extends hundreds of feet into the ground? It was probably designed using the same, or similar, military specs as for a ship and that resulted in cramped, low walkways and rooms. My main takeaway was the normal one of awe that we build things like that, and what sort of global insanity results in their creation? Clearly humanity is tittering on the edge of insanity.

Another trip was a tour to the local desert national park. It was beautiful, but once again I think they (that great unknown version of they) put in too many plants! It is jammed full of plants of various types so you can hardly see the ground in most places. What kind of desert is that?? It certainly isn’t the barren desert that I am used to in the Mojave, or that is depicted in the movies.

I managed to have a couple of interesting discussions with folks while here. One was with a kid (65 years old) that is on a retirement adventure much like me. His mother recently died so he became freed up enough to journey. He was a high-tech salesman, starting out with Wang computers, moving on to AT&T internet and other places. He mentioned the vast amount of money that could be made in the good old days, told me that his friends had made – and spent – fortunes, and that his ex-wife now has his fortune. He told me about the grand canyon, how it was totally impossible for it to take 2-3 million years to cut the canyons because Mt St Helens created a 1,000 foot canyon in just a few days after May 18, 1980. I tried to question him about the existence of such a canyon, and how that could have happened. He insisted that it exists and that it was cut with water coming from above. He is convinced that the grand canyon was cut in a few years not so long ago.

Another discussion I had concerned the future of electric cars. I mentioned that it is my opinion that battery powered cars are a fleeting technology soon to be replaced with hydrogen fuel cells. That got us into a rather confused conversation because I had assumed that because he was a technically trained person, one that is very interested in vehicles of all types, he would understand when I said that I expect future electric cars to be powered by hydrogen fuel cells. I finally figured out that he knew nothing of this, he didn’t know about hydrogen fuel cells, didn’t know that they are mature and ready to be put on the market, and that they offer vast safety and environmental advantages over the current love affair with lithium batteries. I don’t want to go into all of the details about this technology here (perhaps in a separate blog if I get the time and enthusiasm to do so – or if anyone expresses interest in knowing more on the subject). He assumed hydrogen cars would use internal combustion engines, and assumed that hydrogen was far too dangerous to use as evidenced by the Hindenburg disaster in 1937. Even though he is a knowledgeable fellow in engineering related fields he didn’t know that the Hindenburg fire/explosion was NOT primarily a hydrogen event (it was created by the coatings on the gas bags), and that hydrogen is vastly safer than gasoline as a fuel – but he is perfectly happy to drive gasoline powered cars.

The main point that I came away from these discussions is that we are being duped by the news media (for example, telling us that the Hindenburg proved that hydrogen is too dangerous to use and convincing the public that batteries are the way to go when they are a terrible solution promoted by a megalomaniac billionaire). Not only that, but the public is not only almost totally ignorant about anything beyond their immediate sight and touch, but they are either too lazy, or don’t know how, to look things up to sort truth from fiction. They get snippets of information (such as there were great lahars caused by the rapid melting of snow on the mountain that quickly eroded huge amounts of the mountain, and then extrapolate that to other things such as the grand canyon. That satisfies their need for “understanding” and they then settle back and make decisions based upon their totally faulty reasoning.

These inter-connected problems (false information from the media), and an inability to sort fact from fiction are causing much of the discord we are currently experiencing in the USA (and the world). The media problem could be solved by the public demanding truth instead of fiction. We used to get something a bit closer to the truth, but now all controls seem to be been lifted and are free to promote anything they want without ever having to account for their wild flights of fantasy. The second problem, being able to sort truth from fiction, seems to be a massive failure of our education system. My experience in the education of educators when I obtained my teaching credential is that teachers are ill prepared to understand how to do this themselves. There is almost no place in our educational system targeted on the problem of finding valid information among the mountains of lives, falsehoods, wives tales, and religious beliefs. Students are taught that if they read it, or hear it from an “expert” that it is true… no questions asked. And of course we all tend to gravitate toward sources that align with our existing beliefs – therefore keeping us inside of our sphere of knowledge. It takes practice and training to learn to get beyond those limits.

Leaving Gila Bend on the day’s trip to Tucson was a bit of a challenge. My intent was to travel south on highway 85 until it too a left hand bend at Why, eventually turning north onto highway 15 into Tucson. The roads, intersections and signage at Gila Bend resulted in my starting off with a few loops because of missing the correct road, turning back, missing it yet again, until finally settling down into what I hoped was highway 85 heading south toward the border. My first encounter with “Border Control” was about 40 miles north of the border when I passed an “inspection station” with a line of north heading cars being stopped and inspected by the Border Control “services.” The location of this station surprised me because it seemed to imply that everyone living closer than 40 miles from Mexico is suspect, they can’t just drive anywhere in Arizona, they have to stop and explain themselves to the police. We have created a 40 mile wide “no-mans-land” of semi-free space where you have to keep proving you are acceptable. I suppose it is a minor inconvenience to have to sit in line waiting for them to interrogate those in front of you – but it also seems oddly placed. Luckily I was traveling south so there were no restrictions for my travel (until I turn the corner heading back north in my effort to escape this zone of semi-freedom).

The trip was beautiful and uneventful for the first 30 miles or so until I came to the town of Ajo. (I wonder how this is spoken? Is it “A Ho” as my native friends say in agreement? I chose to believe it is and that makes me smile.) My car’s navigation system had a bit of a melt down in Ajo, it took me on a big loop through town, and then headed me back north toward Gila Bend. If I hadn’t been paying attention to the tiny compass on the display I would probably have driven back to the inspection station before I noticed I was going the wrong direction. I am glad my car made me loop through town, it took me on a tour of many large “Spanish” style churches and through neighborhoods of the local folks, which from what little evidence I could see appeared to be mostly of Mexican or Native descent. The town was spotless, well maintained and showed a lot of pride. It felt good to me. I would have liked to have stopped, but I pushed on to meet my scheduled arrival time in Tucson.

The N-S highway 85 interested with W-E highway 86 at Why, thereafter going almost due east for 40 miles. This part of the road goes through rugged cactus filled desert. The quantity and variety of cacti was astounding, huge, saguaro cactus dominating the lower tiered cacti of my descriptions, set in fields of bright green and yellow palo verde trees. Everything seemed to be in full bloom! Bright yellows, greens, white, reds and more filled the vistas. It felt like I was driving through a artist’s palette. I considered attempting to take a photo of the vast fields of vibrant colors but realized that it was very difficult to do because I was down in the colors, kind of like an ant walking across the colors of that artist’s palette, the colors were bright wherever I was, but an aerial view would be necessary to capture the mix and profusion, any single photograph would just capture one color, one tree or cactus bloom. I elected to just drive on by and enjoy the experience.

At one point I was passed by a group of 20 to 30 border control pickups, vans and cars heading east. The were at high speeds far in excess of the posted speed limits, but without lights or sirens. I guessed that they were closing in on yet another “kill” or perhaps that call it an intervention. The speeds, with a lack of the use of warning lights, made me feel like they probably rule the roost in this part of the world, they have special privileges and powers because “they are the man.” This part of my trip took me past many large, sparkling new border control facilities including their stations, administration offices, detention centers topped with rolling loops of cocertina wire. The entire area feels very much under siege, perhaps it feels like living in a war zone – I felt constantly under surveillance and suspicion, even though I had no direct evidence of that. It was just the constant presence of externally imposed power and police that made me feel that way. The border control forces were obviously a foreign military force imposing order on a separate country (the band of no-mans-land 40 miles north of the border). They felt like an invading force imposing control.

with a long line of small rooms with parking in front of the doors. Nice, but not what I think of as “hotel” at hotel prices of over $150 a night.

It appears to have had a period of time of distress, but recently “fixed up” with new paint, some murals on the walls, and perhaps a new layer on the parking lot. They hotel guide describes a number of special “extra” features such as “privacy in your room” (meaning nobody to change towels, make beds, empty trash or replace consumables), no provisions to hang up or lay out your cloths, no coffee maker in the room, no comfortable chairs to clutter up the space along with a free “healthy” breakfast (meaning a cup of rolled oats dispensed by the server to make sure you don’t accidentally take a cup and a half), and as Asian food truck for the restaurant. But it is clean, comfortable and is here. Actually, it is all just fine – but expensive for what you get.

At first I just chuckled at the advertisements promoting the lack of typical services and amenities as “benefits” – somehow you get something special by not getting room service because you get privacy! Really? That only works if you actually don’t need those services. As I ponder the situation I am starting to see that there are real benefits to the high prices, tiny rooms, silly little breakfasts – it serves to keep “those others” out. It works great for us well-to-do ex-hippies that like the funky digs, like the murals, and are happy with a cup of “healthy” mush for breakfast. It is totally unworkable for families with children, hence the pool has no kids and the adults can comfortable float around drinking their beers or wine and chatting. The high prices keep out the riff raff. The reason that the place feels quiet and comfortable in the face of what would normally be considered unacceptable service and amenities is that it become the exclusive playground for those that are not price driven and don’t have children or other distractions. It is an “adult” upper middle class community without having to say so. There high prices mean that they don’t fill as many rooms, so the profits are profits are probably similar to, or less than, what they would be with prices appropriate for the services, but it allows them to better select their clientele. Recently I read that many businesses do something similar. They set prices not upon their need or costs, but upon a desire to select their customers. For example, perhaps Target sets the prices a bit higher than Walmart not for cost reasons, but to keep Walmart customers out. I wonder how often this sort of logic applies to the setting of prices. Another example might be the hotels in places like Palmdale where the big hotels run with less than 1/2 occupancy by keeping the prices as high as the government will pay their contractors to bill. They could probably make more money with 80% occupancy at a far lower price, but that would allow in the riff raff – which isn’t their target market.

On a more important note for me as I ponder what I will do in Tucson for four days with nothing special to do. I realize that while my idea of staying in small hotel/motels is laudable, it also means that the folks I meet there are all travelers – obviously. So last night I hung out in the pool for a bit. I talked to a musician from Ukiah, California (a place near my home that I am very familiar with), a truck driver from Las Angeles and a couple of women from Boston. Not exactly the “locals” I am hoping for. It is clear that if I am to meet locals it will either be the workers at these hotels, or someone someplace else. The workers are working, so don’t have time to interact more than a cursory “Hi” in passing. So I need to expand my exposure. Up until today I was traveling with the goal of getting to my hotel in Tucson at the scheduled time. That left little time to expand my search for “local” lore.

As I sit here on Monday morning thinking about my plans for the day I find I am perplexed. I could do a lot of normal “tourist” things such as visit the Biosphere, go to some museums and art galleries, or perhaps visit a botanical garden or two. Maybe I could to Congress Street for dinner and entertainment. All good choices, but with the possible exception of Congress Street, filled with tourists and travelers like myself. Probably most of whom are from California. I haven’t yet found a solution, but am beginning to identify the problem. I wish myself luck with this.

I finally made it to Gila Bend, AZ. I took “back roads” from Parker to Gila Bend. Not actually back roads, rather the old roads which have been bypassed by the freeways, leaving odd, rather depressing, little semi-ghost towns in its path. Every thirty miles or so was a wide spot on the road where someone had made their dream come true with a small business of their own out in the desert. Perhaps it was a little restaurant, or the shell of an old service station, or an forlorned laundromat with broken windows, great holes in the roof and spray painted graffiti on the walls. I couldn’t help but think of their excitement in starting a business, a few years of success, followed by utter failure – just leaving things as they were with outside furniture and once colorful signs disintegrating in the desert air. I stopped at one of these almost abandoned restaurants in the town of Hope to find that it was not abandoned at all. It was huge, with perhaps 40 or 50 dinner tables, two cocktail bars, a large outdoor barbecue party spot – and five people sitting at a table eating lunch. Obviously a party destination. They were clearly the owners and employees. The menu was huge, offering six pages of wonders. I had a pattimelt – it was very good but too big. Leaving town is a big sign saying, “You are now beyond Hope”.

My travel goal for the day was Gila Bend – for no particular reason other than the map indicated it is on a major highway and hence might offer accommodations. My route took me south under a major east-west freeway, continuing south for 30 miles or so then turning to the east in the general direction of Gila Bend. The long road south was desolate, much of it going through industrial sized farm country. No cars, no people, no buildings, just mile after mile of fields (mostly alfalfa). When I finally made it to the bend in the road, there was no bend – just a dead end! I back tracked most of the way back to the freeway, finally taking a paved road with painted lines to the east assuming it was in good enough condition to go somewhere. The road was not on my map or the car navigator, but that was how most of the day had gone. The map showed roads that weren’t there, and the navigator was unusually lost. My guess was correct, I eventually made it to Gila Bend.

Gila Bend is another once prosperous town that is now mostly ghost town. The town is a typical desert town consisting of a single strip road of businesses along the main drag, with housing and other facilities away from the highway. One side of town is backed up with the railroad, the other tapers off toward the hills to the west. There are many empty and derelict businesses, large motels, restaurants, insurance businesses, bars, etc. Now they are mostly boarded up with giant holes in the roofs and walls, a few have “For Sale” signs just in case someone might have too much money laying around.

I ordered a roast beef sandwich out of nostalgia from the days of traveling with my parents in the desert. For some reason that was one of my father’s favorites, so it was a common choice. I thought it was terrible, but I was the kid and they were paying. It turned out that the Space Age Restaurant serves the perfect RB sandwich – perfectly horrible, just like in the old days. Sliced, grizzly, roast beef on a piece of compressed and ugly white bread, a scoop of mashed potatoes, all buried under terrible gravy made from salty beef broth. It is disgusting to look at, and even worse to eat. I enjoyed my meal immensely, just like the old times. My room is comfortable, spotless, and quiet. Nothing much more to hope for.

The last time I had time to sit and write on my blog was Wednesday, the second day of my trip. It is now Saturday May 6th and I finally have a bit of time and energy to catch up. Boy, time is really spinning by in a hurry.

My plan was to spend the first night in San Juan Batista, which I did – spending an uneventful evening walking around town and having dinner in a small Mexican restaurant. The biggest “event” was when the bartender “accidentally” made two extra mango/tequila drinks which she donated to the two of us guys having dinner at the bar.

I had reservations at a little motel in Taft for Wednesday night. However, when I was looking at the map on Wednesday morning I realized that I was pretty far south and perhaps I could make a little detour to San Luis Obispo to see Cathy, an old college friend of Mary Jo and myself. I called Cathy to make sure she would be available, which she was. I then headed west instead of east. I hadn’t planned on visiting the Pacific Ocean on my way back east. I got a reservation in a Best Western near San Luis Obispo and headed out. Of course this meant that I couldn’t stay in Taft, and it was too close to my time there to get a refund – so I ended up paying for two rooms that night (luckily the room in Taft was relatively inexpensive). I take that at as a lesson, don’t book a room unless I am certain that I will be there to use it, and my wandering style of trip planning will likely change plans on the spur of the moment. Better to take the chance of not getting a room than to pay twice. I’ll see how this new plan works out.

I had a really nice time visiting with Cathy, walking around her little village on the way to dinner, driving to see the ocean and her old neighborhood, and just catching up on what has happened during the 50 or so years since we actually saw each other. It was nice, but a little awkward at first in that while it felt like we were old friends, it had been so long since actually knowing each other that it took a bit to start filling the details back in again.

I left San Luis Obispo mid-morning on Thursday in order to catch up on some lost time on my trip (and distance) toward Tucson where I booked a room on the 7th. Not wanting to take major highways, especially freeways, I opted to take a smaller road due east over the mountains to reconnect with my planned route near Bakersfield. My route would take me on a small, but well used highway over the mountains. Near what seemed like the summit I passed a sign saying that it was two miles to the Carrizo Plains National Monument. That caught my eye because before my trip several people suggested that I go there to see this year’s “superbloom” of wild flowers. Two miles seemed like a reasonable side trip, especially since I was making good time toward my evening destination of “some place near Lancaster” (without reservations this time). I found the plains, but very few flowers. There was an overabundance of “weeds” with buds ready to bloom – but very few blooms. I guess I was a little early.

When I take side trips like that I normally turn off the car’s GPS so that it doesn’t keep saying, “Route Calculation”. When I got back to the intersection, I turned it back on expecting to be instructed to turn to the left to continue on my path toward Lancaster. Instead, it told me to turn to my right. After very short distance it had me turn to my left (east) and I continued on. The road was getting pretty narrow as I kept going higher into the mountains. I assumed that my thought that I was at the summit was just a hump and the summit was still to come. The road kept getting smaller, signs appearing along the road advising that chains might be required at all times, that mud slides were possible, and to watch for falling rocks worried me a little as I kept climbing through very steep and rough terrain. After about an hour of this I realized that I had seen no signs of people, no cars, no telephone poles, no nothing – and my 77 mile total trip had passed 125 miles and I was still climbing! I was up in the clouds – at one point a huge dark cloud was just off the side of the road, it felt like it was just sitting there looming at me as I passed by. Snow was becoming common under the trees and in a few open places, as the outside temperature kept dropping. I was slightly concerned, but figured that I could always back-track if the road become impassible. At one point I stopped to see if I could figure out where I was on my paper map, but was unable to find the road on the map. I was kind of lost, but had met no intersections so knew I could find my way out if necessary.

Eventually I went over a summit and headed back down toward the San Joaquin valley. I could see the flat land of the valley off in the distance, but wasn’t sure how I would get there. I came to small farms, a few little buildings and finally a town. The town is interesting in that it is a mix of the old original homes and businesses in the mountains, mixed with many much newer, huge, ugly two story vacation “cabins”. I knew there were cabins because of the colors, frilly eves and carved animals in the front yards. They were actually just big out of place boxes with little “class” or aesthetic appeal. Apparently I had reached a region of summer homes from Las Angeles. I eventually met Interstate 5 near the summit of The Grapevine, then turning toward the east and Lancaster. My side trip took an extra hour and a half or so, and 75 miles, but took me through beautiful and rugged country I would have missed. All was well.

It was a nice was to slide into the desert. However, I eventually got to Lancaster and found it to be the armpit of the west. It is all big hotels, cookie cutter shopping malls, big industrial sized building – and freeways. I could find no indications of a people friendly town, it is just a sprawling factory. It was quite shocking following so closely upon my time in the rugged mountains and the rather magical slide into the desert. Thinking that the neighboring town of Palmdale sounded a bit “softer” and perhaps people friendly, I continued for a few miles. However, it turns out that Lancaster and Palmdale are just one continuous sprawl of ugly. I gave up and got a room at a DoubleTree hotel in Palmdale.

After settling in to my room I noticed a periodic, loud, “growling” noise, accompanied by a slight shaking of the floor. That turned out to be the elevator! It was so loud that sleep would have not been possible. I went out into the hall to investigate, finding a maintenance man to ask if that was going to continue. He said is had been fixed – it used to be NOISY. I got another room on the top floor at the end of the hall. Much better, and I had a great view of the top of a tree from my room.

After resting for a bit I went downstairs to get a glass of wine and see about getting dinner. The bar was all white inside, white walls, white bar top, white tables. There were two guys sitting at the far ends of the bar eating dinner and staring at their cellphones. A baseball game was playing on the television, but nobody was paying attention. Nobody looked up when I came in, even the bartender seemed to be too busy to respond, taking my order and then leaving the three of us sitting at the bar. There was no opportunity to start up a conversation or even make a friendly jester. Rather dejected, and a bit lonely, I decided I was exhausted and it was best to just have my wine, eat dinner, and go to my room for the night.

Before I could finish my dinner a big, good looking older (perhaps 70) black man (Whitney) came in and sat in the middle of the bar – asking our opinions of our meal choices. He ordered a drink and dinner – then sat up, leaned back and started singing! He just flat belted out a song about how to care for a woman. It blew me away because it answered the very question that I had been mulling over on my lost wanderings through the mountains earlier that day. I had been thinking about the recent unexpected loss of my wife, wondering how I would ever find another partner, and if I did find someone what should I do to treat her well as we age together into an unknown, and unknowable, future. All of a sudden here was a stranger belting out the answer to me in a most unconventional way. I have been in a lot of bars of the years, but this was the first time that I had seen anyone launch into full-throated song.

After a little it Whitney indicated that he wanted someone to sing a little backup notes. Being the quite and shy type, I took up the invitation and joined him (not well, but enthusiastically). He then paused his singing to give directions to the three of us, indicating who should take the base, who would sing the middle and who would take the high end of the backup. I was assigned the middle because I would normally take the base and he said that wouldn’t be fun. He moved us all to places that were uncomfortable – and then we all sang! It wasn’t pretty, but it was fun.

After our singing finally died down, he quizzed the guy at the right end of the bar about his background. It turns out that this guy was from Ireland, is a music producer part time and an engineer working in the aerospace industry. He said that the large presences of the aerospace industry accounts for the “industrial” nature of the area. The two of them talked to each other about the position of “producer” in the music industry. I was having a hard time understanding what they were talking about so asked them to explain what a producer is and what they do. That really ignited an interesting discussion. Apparently the producer is the one that guides all aspects of the production, from the selection of music, the performers, the details of the performance (pace, style, clothing, lighting, room details, microphone selection – everything). Whitney explained that Michael Jackson is an example of a performer that is successful because he was also the producer. He was in total control over all aspects of his productions, getting everyone to do exactly what he needed them to do to achieve his vision.

As an example of “producing” the bar experience that we were in, he “redid” the bar/lounge image. He “put” poles on a table in the middle of the room and populated them with pole dancers, he added a lap dancer to spice things up a bit, he changed the color scheme and blocked the windows so kiddies wouldn’t see in. Basically, he completely changed the vision of the place just by playing with a few ideas. Perhaps that vision isn’t exactly what the management would like in their family friendly hotel – but it was an interesting game in that moment.

Whitney said that he could “produce” me to sing. I scoffed at the possibility of this, I am not known for my musical prowess. He then asked me to sing a note. I just picked one and did so. He said to go higher, then a little lower, and a little longer – and finally said, “There, you got to my vision and you now can do that part.”

It dawned on me that is what I do when I am “teaching” newly hired engineers how to be system safety engineers. I tell them what is expected, let them try, and then come back to adjust their efforts until they “get it” – at which point I can turn my attention to other concerns. In running my engineering consulting firm I am acting at the “producer” of our services. I had been thinking in terms of being a manager – but it is much more than that. All of the parts of the “show” (our services and relationships with our customers) are important and need to be guided for best results. I also realize that is what is missing in the System Safety Society’s management, and perhaps in the management of the USA. We don’t have a President that can communicate an appropriate vision, and doesn’t not know how to help others help him achieve that vision.

By the end of the day I was totally blown away. I had started an evening of absolutely nothing, and then something happened. Something that has changed my understanding of my life, something that will stay with me far into the future. Lessons come from mysterious places if you just relax and let them happen.

The day started with a rainbow in Zamora and ended with another rainbow in San Juan Batista, where they are having record cold weather for the date. It was a pleasant trip with lots of rain squalls to keep the driving interesting.

I went to a Mexican restaurant for dinner, ordering a Chili Verde meal that was far too big – I was uncomfortable all night from eating too much. I need to pay attention and just eat until I have had enough, not until the plate is clean. The guy sitting next to me at the bar having his dinner finished off a similar dinner and then ordered, and ate, a second! Drinks were on the house that night. The bartender lady, who had a ring in her nose and a second in her lip, “accidentally” made three mango drinks instead of the one ordered by a customer. Couldn’t just pour the extra down the drain, so the other guy and myself had to take care of the problem.

I had a nice chat with that guy (we didn’t exchange names so he is now known to me as Guy). He is from Roseville and working in the area with CalTrans trying to clean up the mud slides left over from the winter storms. The three of us (including the bar tender) had a pleasant time together. Afterward I walked around the mission grounds in the hopes of working some of my over-eating discomfort down.

I already changed my planned trip, now heading to Santa Barbara for the next night, instead of Taft. I am going to deviate to have lunch with an old friend from college. The hotel in Santa Barbara will undoubtedly be much nicer than in Taft, but since I had a reservation in Taft, and it is less than 24 hours before my stay, I will have to add the price of the unused Taft hotel to the night’s lodging. I think that gives me an early lesson – don’t make reservations too far in advance when you are just wandering around following your nose. Luckily the Taft hotel was only $77, it was a relatively inexpensive lesson. So much for making advanced plans.

I almost forgot, there was an earthquake last night. Not really strong, but enough to wake me up. Not an angry shaking thing, more like the earth purring – gentle and soft. I found it comforting – perhaps I have lived too many years in “earthquake country”. I consider the two rainbows and a purring earth to be great starts for my new adventure.