Nov 29

Stir crazy

adventure Add Comment (2)

No updates in forever, but that is how it goes for me with these things, since the early days. A promise to update, a follow through, then somehow things taper off to nothing. Ah well, it happens.

I’m back in Utah again. Amanda and I drove down to Hobbs for Thanksgiving, and boy, that was an adventure.

We stayed with Chris in Farmington at his folks house the first night, then headed down through Socorro, dropping off Chris’ trailer. Ended up in Artesia and had dinner with my sister at her house. Amanda was not really amused with New Mexico, and slept most of the time. I think she has little patience for things that do not interest her, as I would be in the middle of telling a story or pointing something out and she would interrupt with something irrelevant and, ‘Oh, sorry, I was listening!’.

It started snowing that night after we arrived, but I wasn’t worried. The storm was to clear out before we left, and indeed it did. We spent the next few days over Thanksgiving in Hobbs. We did zip over to Lubbock on Friday to see Mike and his wife. They seem to be doing well. Mike was most upset that I left. Sorry man, I wish I would have had more time to spend with you guys.

Amanda made me pull over on the way to Lubbock so she could pick some cotton. She then proceeded to pick out the cotton, pick the seeds out of it, and proclaim, ‘It’s so soft! It’s like a worry stone!’ and then it became her constant companion in the car.

We left Hobbs on Sunday and took our time getting to Socorro. We stopped at the UFO museum in Roswell, and paid our $5 to view it. I had been there before, but I always get a tad bit of amusement from the place. Amanda was not, as I could tell, amused.

Leaving out of there, I decided to take the back way to Capitan. I proceeded to find the proper turn off, get on it, and then, miraculously, turn back off of it. I was halfway back to 360 when I realized what I had done, and gave up trying to go the back way. Amanda didn’t realize this, and I didn’t elaborate, as she had lost the bracket to my radar detector and I was busy letting her feel a tad guilty, hehe.

The drive over the mountain was almost uneventful. I was pretty much on the last hill before the turn off to Ruidoso just before Carrizozo when I saw a shape to my left. I was going a little faster than the speed limit and my brain was a tad bit of mush, so my reaction time was not as good as I would have hoped. However, the elk stepped up onto the highway, slowly, as I crammed on the brakes, feeling the antilock computer trigger the pump, let up slightly, steered hard left until it felt like the truck was going to break free and slide, whip it back to the right a tad, just in time to miss the slowly moving furry rump of the elk, now fully in the lane I was supposed to be in. Amanda screamed and grabbed for handles. It was over, and we were back in the proper lane. My headache, which I had pushed away with a couple of Tylenol earlier, was now pinging off my skull with every thump of my heart until the adrenaline wore off. Yummy.

Met up with Danny, his housemate Moses, Chris, and, randomly, Frank, at the brew pub in Socorro. Danny suggested some drinking would be in order seeing as I was in town. We proceeded to go out to the Cap with Danny, Moses, and, randomly, Lewis. Mariel and Bill were at the bar as well (suprise!). Danny had invited Amanda and I to sleep at his place a few blocks away, so we were able to have a really good time and not have to worry about driving.

The next day we had lunch with Danny and Chris, and I helped Chris move a washing machine, and we rolled out of town. We ran a few errands in Albuquerque, getting insurance straightened out, getting the Mustang insured and titled so I can drive it now that it is snowy up here, and, (word of the day) randomly ended up having dinner with Mike Fisher. Wireless Watermelon is still kicking, and I expect it will end up doing well, eventually. We headed up to Los Alamos for the night, with a brief tour of Santa Fe in the middle.

I loaded up the garage as best I could the next morning while Amanda was tasked with getting the air mattress packed up. I came in at one point to get her help to load some heavy boxes, but she was still getting ready. She told me to put the air mattress in the bag, and I told her, no, she could do it. She shot me the dirtiest of dirty looks, and I responded by raising my voice, saying, ‘It’s your job!’ and storming out. Not entirely sure what that was all about. Turned out, she thought I was outside doing nothing, so she was mad I was not helping her, and I was upset she was taking so long and couldn’t come help me. The net-net of it was that I was the recipient of the Silent Treatment Award for the next 200 miles.

Amanda finally calmed down and started talking to me again, and boy, she had saved some stuff up. Near Cortez, CO, she was lost in thought, staring out the window at a few dozen head of cattle just off the highway. She turned to me, and said:

“Why do they let the cows out when it is so cold out?”

Seriously. I blinked hard, and said, ‘Because they are wearing fur coats. Where do you think animals go when it is cold out?’. She replied, ‘I don’t know, I never thought of it before.’

This wasn’t all. At some point she started yakking on about ‘volcanic bears’. And then, ‘Too bad there is not milk bears, like cows’. I pointed out that you could milk a bear. ‘Ohhh! I forgot they were mammals…’ What the heck?

The trip through most of Utah was pretty smooth. I had been checking the Utah road conditions web page, worried somewhat about what highway 6 over Soldier Summit was going to be like, as Salt Lake was getting snow. The webpage said it was clear, no issues. Boy, was that a lie. The road was white out. It was cold enough that all we were getting was fine, blowing snow, so the air swam with snow, the road crawled with currents of power. At some points, the only way I knew I was on the road was that if I went too far right of left, I would hit rumble strips. A semi truck came up behind me, riding behind me about 4 foot off my bumper. I’m doing 30-35, keeping about 6 car lengths from the car in front of me, and here is this semi right on me. He starts flashing me. What the hell? I find somewhere that looks OK to pull off, and pull off so he can go by. He gets in front of the car in front of me, and then… stays there, going slow. That was unnerving. Plus, getting back onto the road, my rear tires were spinning out. Mmmmm slick. Taking it slow, it took a few hours to go the 60 miles, but I made it. The interstate was just wet, and presented no problem getting home.

Spike and Muffy were happy to see us. Spike has been glued to me since I made it in. He tried to come shower with me this morning, that is how bad it has been. Geeez.

Anyway, I’m knee deep in schematics now, working on getting some board level repairs going on some lasers. So, back to work…