Shred Head Crew

Day 5: After a horrible night sleep in what can only be described as the dirtiest motel ever built (full disclosure: I slept on my air mattress on the floor) we awoke to a beautiful day in Dodge City.  We loaded up the chariot and headed out.  We had a solid drive for the day as we wanted to make it to Taos, NM by nightfall.

Road warrior breakfast.

Though we’d driven for what seemed like forever through Kansas the day before, we still weren’t all the way across it.  Seriously, it’s a big state.  [Also, I forgot to mention in the last post that we drove through Greensburg, KA.  Greensburg was the town that was completely demolished (i.e, disapeared) after a tornado tore through it in 2007.  We'd been calmly driving in the car saying "yea, we'll just grab a campsite somewhere in Greensburg."  Imagine our surprise upon passing 'Main Street' and seeing this.  Actually, the town is attempting to rebuild as the 'greenest' town in America...]

We finally made our way out of Kansas and into Oklahoma (you can imagine our excitement).  Not a whole lot changed between the two states, in fact, the scenery and roads were eerily similar.  And by ’similar’ I mean ‘identical.’  The roads were completely straight.

The Cowboy.  The road was so quiet we could have pitched our tent.

After our standard AM stop for two 24oz coffees, scratch tickets, gallon of water, and microwaveable treats, we decided to hit it hard in order to get to Taos by a reasonable hour.  We tore through the Oklahoma Panhandle and cruised into the Land of Enchantment.

If you live in Oklahoma this is apparently the best place for target shooting…

New Mexico was a welcome change as we finally started to see some mountains and things other than prairie.  We drove through a crazy lightning storm and passed a big herd of buffalo as we headed into the very southern part of the Rockies in New Mexico.

The highlight of the day for me was once we made it into the mountains outside Taos.  Sammy had taken the wheel, and as we switch-backed up and over the pass, there were a few cop cars that decided to continually freak him out.  They’d drive behind us for a few minutes, than throw their lights on.  Instead of pulling us over they’d pass us (fast) and zip ahead of us.  A couple minutes later another cop car would arrive behind us, and we’d then pass another (perhaps the original) cop coming towards us.  As soon as he’d pass us he put his lights back on, throw a U-Turn and get in line behind the other cop.  Then, they’d both put their lights on and pass us, only to do the same thing all over again a few minutes later.  I giggled through most of this, while Sammy death-gripped the wheel and muttered “Here come the f****** fuzz, again…”  Luckily they left us alone and we made it Taos with all of our bodily cavities and manhood intact.

After arriving in town and a great mexican dinner (and an 8 year old waiter) we cruised over to the campground and settled in for the night at our campsite.  The weather was calling for rain so we built a quick A-frame over our tent to keep us dry.

That night we had an awesome view of the moon rising over the mountains.  After finishing the 30 rack of Genessee we’d purchased in Ohio, we got all sorts of artistic with the camera.  Sambo kept saying “Any good photog knows it’s all about lighting.  This is sick lighting”

I got a great night sleep in the cool desert air, but Sambo had a tough time.  He’d punctured a hole in his air mattress somewhere along the way and was up all night blowing it back up (he claims 8+ times during the night…).  I woke up refreshed and ready for a great day, opened my eyes and saw saw Sammy staring at me with a bitchy look on his face.  ”What’s wrong?” I asked, “My ass is on the ground.  My f****** mattress is flat.”

We packed up (and after a stop at Ace Hardware for a patch kit) headed to the Grand Canyon… Stay tuned.

Tags: Excellent Adventure

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 12th, 2009 at 12:41 pm and is filed under From The Road. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.