Trailer Trash Mama (Again!)

Thanks to my dear friends Leslie and Her Dan we made a last minute alteration to our itinerary to include the Antelope Slot Canyon in northern Arizona.  It’s located on Navajo Nation land and was only opened to the public in 1997.  It was closed for over a year due to Covid but has recently reopened with strict protocols, including mask wearing inside the canyon. Like me, you’ve probably seen a Microsoft screensaver taken there or other famous photos of this incredible place.  Nothing prepared me for the impact it would have on me. The minute I entered the first chamber I began to cry, surprising myself and Dan, but not Leonard, our Navajo guide.  He just nodded, and gave me a little pat on the shoulder.  “It takes some people like that.” It was utterly overwhelming and I don’t want to try to figure out why.   At one point Leonard asked for my phone and told me look up, and then took this photo of me. Water.  It’s all down to water and its unstoppable power to change and destroy and cr

  Grand Canyon I could have sworn the Grand Canyon sat in the middle of a desert.  You wouldn’t really see it as you drove towards it.  Maybe a slight disturbance in the light or a shimmer in the air above it being the only indication you were approaching.  Much like that gorge in Taos only on a bigger scale. But it’s not.  At least not at the South Rim. You climb steadily upwards to an altitude of 7,000 feet.  All you can see is trees.  The National Park itself is a maze of narrow twisty roads through more trees with a surprising number of buildings tucked in amongst them.  It all felt rather claustrophobic even with the pretty snow that had fallen during the night.   The Grand Canyon is somewhere to the right, apparently. We first had to get settled in the RV park so it was late afternoon by the time we finally got to the Rim.  Perhaps they designed it this way. You can’t really see anything until you’ve parked and walked right up to the edge.  The ultimate Big Reveal. It’s everythin

  You know the saying: “An expectation is a premeditated resentment.”  Well, sometimes it’s true.  Take the Green Chile Cheeseburger from Sparky’s in Hatch, New Mexico.  People drive two hours from Albuquerque for it.  Seriously, don’t.  I still resent the calories I wasted on that sad little specimen.  However, the town itself was pleasant and the many stores devoted to its namesake were fabulous. Sometimes (okay, rarely) expectations can be exceeded. Take Yosemite for example.  Mind blowing. And sometimes, if you manage to actually have no expectations, you find yourself utterly delighted and amazed by something you had no clue even existed. I’d picked the town of Silver City, NM merely as a convenient stop on our way towards the Grand Canyon.  We found out there were some Pueblo cliff dwellings not too far away and decided to check them out.  The famous ones at Mesa Verde were closed for the season and we’d only been able to look at them from a distance this time.  We’d never heard

There is no shortage of weird place names in this vast country. I already mentioned Boring and Drain in Oregon, but let’s not forget the town of Why in Arizona.  I wish there was a town named Because somewhere but we must make do with Whynot in North Carolina.  Then there’s Slickpoo in Idaho, Climax in Georgia, Intercourse in Pennsylvania, Lick Fork in West Virginia, Hell in Michigan and Gas in Kansas (please, oh please let there be sign saying “You’ve just passed Gas!”) The town of Truth Or Consequences, New Mexico (“T or C” to its residents) was high on my list of places to visit just because of its name.  It felt important somehow.  When I mentioned to that nice-but-crazy Death Valley cyclist from Albuquerque that it was one of our New Mexico destinations he just said “Why?” Well, the first disappointment was how the town got its name.  Not from some weighty moral dilemma a century ago but from a radio and then TV game show of the same name that ran from 1940 through to 1988. It was

I’ve  been waiting 11 years for a burger.  A Bobcat Bite Green Chile Cheeseburger to be exact.  This unassuming, six table place outside Santa Fe delivered a burger that was simply incomparable.  Dan outside the original Bobcat Bite in 2010 And inside, with its unique decor. I  could count on one hand the number of burgers I’ve eaten since then - each one a sad disappointment.  So, expectations were high.  Maybe too high, as the first thing we learned was that the original place had been sold and a new place opened in town, ostensibly with the same owners and famed grill, but now called Santa Fe Bite.  Second disappointment was that it was closed on the day we rolled into town so we tried another winner of the Green Chile Cheeseburger Smackdown (it’s a thing). Nope.  Not even close to being great.   Happily we were in town for almost a week so we got to the new place.  Despite the bland suburban decor - gone were the beefy guys perched on wrought iron chairs - the new Bobcat Bite deliv

New Mexico Taos, New Mexico doesn’t seem like it’s that high up because it’s surrounded by a vast flat plain, but it sits at 7,000 ft.  It’s another 2,000 ft to reach the famed ski area above it. It was cold at night when we were there over Thanksgiving - down to 17F - but we were happily plugged in and very comfortable.   Managed to still smoke the Turkey even if it was just the breast. There’s a famous bridge over a gorge which we had to cross on our way to the post-Thanksgiving treat I’d lined up. Despite what the GPS was telling us there was no indication we were on the approach to this “second highest bridge on the US Highway system”.  All I could see was that vast plain. See that dark stripe in the middle and the light bit in the center? And then there it was.  650 feet above the Rio Grande which cut this narrow gorge over I don’t know how many years.  It was the original “Bridge to Nowhere” when it was built in 1965 because funding did not exist to continue the road on the other