First we woke up. We were very excited because we had left over dominos. I do not know if we ate any because we ate too much the night before, but we had lava cakes. Boy oh boy, it was yummy. Okay, so then, first stop on our trip out of Roswell. Donuts. We had donuts. Roswell donuts. We got one Bear Claw, One Apple Fritter, One Chocolate, One Chocolate Glaze with sprinkles. The Bear Claw was on recommendation from the worker bee, all very good, Bear claw was clear winner, glad she recommended it. Yeast based donut: not quite as good as Krispy Kreme, but still top tier. Second stop was hotly debated, we definitely wanted coffee but did not know where from. Based purely off of yelp reviews, positive yelp reviews I might add, and niche appeal, we decided to go to Perk ’N Jerk coffee and Jerkey emporium. When we got there, oh boy did we realize we were in for an experience. There was not a soul around except for a 90’s ford station wagon in the condition you’d expect parked right in front of the front door. Naturally, you would think it was a customer, but when we walked up and didn’t see anyone inside, we realized the owner was the type of person who owns a business and parks in the closest parking spot either not expecting anyone to come so no need to leave it open or he wants to claim it first, who knows. He welcomed us in and asked us what we wanted, we responded with “A Perk and Jerk please.” His flavor board had two sides to it. We were confused and thought that only one side was jerky, so we only ordered salt and pepper jerky. We asked if he had any other jerkies, maybe something hot, and he said, “The board has two sides to it, the other side is spicy.” So we also got red pepper, which was literally just red pepper flakes on jerky. After receiving our order, he went to retrieve the jerk. He went into the back and brought large Tupperware storage containers out and placed them on the table in the middle of the room. He then grabbed a box of quart sized zip locks, a zip lock full of labels, and a sharpie. He straighten up a food scale that was on the table and zeroed it. When he opened the first Tupperware, we were able to see a sea of jerky which he grabbed a hand full of and placed on the scale. After getting the desired weight by adding and removing tears of meat, he sealed the bag, slapped a label on, and scribbled the date. He did the same with the second jerky. After getting the jerky bagged and tagged, he asked if we were interested in any coffee. Upon entering, we both felt that we did not want to buy any coffee from the joint, but when asked point blank, we panicked! Hannah got an iced coffee and I got a hot coffee. He asked us about our trip plans while preparing our coffee and we told him our next stop was White Sands. He muttered something under his breath that made us feel like he didn’t think too highly of our trip and began giving us a few suggestions of his own. One being to go to an Airplane museum that had a legitimate plane of a certain, very specific model. I asked about the plane, to get a better idea of what to visualize, and he must of thought I wasn’t worth anymore of his time because he replied with a change of subject. He handed us our coffee, we paid, and we were on our way. While we were waiting for our coffee and Jerky, we took in the ambiance he made by putting up pictures of army things and his “Will return soon” signs. You can see these arts in the photos.
After leaving Perk and Jerk we got on the road heading west on the way to White Sands National Park. Starting some point around Wyoming, during our last trip, as we drove through the rolling west of open land, I couldn’t help but imagine myself riding along beside the camper in cowboy boots, wranglers, very cool cowboy style shirt, bandana/bolo, and cowboy hat - full gallop on the back of a stallion I broke all on my lonesome and consider to be my best pardner. By the time we were west of Wyoming I knew if I saw a nice pair of cowboy boots or cowboy hat I was going to buy them regardless of any practicality post trip. I never found the little genuine cowboy store I was expecting in any of the one stop sign towns we drove through via country back roads so I just kept hoping and looking and as we spent time back in Wilmington with Lil Poot in the shop those desires kept floating further and further to the back of my mind. Those thoughts and desires, though, never fully disappeared, and when we made It to Texas they rushed back into my heart like a tornado and I couldn’t drive for being blinded by a flurry of images of me riding horses, roping cattle, riding full gallop chasing bandits with a six shooter in each hand one firing straight to my chase and one firing behind me at my chaser. I must have blacked out or passed out or just plain fell asleep, for I woke up to Hannah shaking me saying “David! Wake up!” I snapped out of the most realistic reality where I was defending a train car from a robbery with TNT exploding all around me, and worse, exploded the on coming bridge. We only had 15 seconds to get all 250 passengers off the train before we were all taking the express elevator down the 700’ cliff and, I am sorry, but no stops between or getting off, this is the express elevator. Right as the engine started to drop and the wheels of the last train car left the tracks, only a dozen passengers managed to jump off the train prior, their fate unknown. I started calming the people in my car telling them we were on our way to Dairy Queen and everyone is going to get a free Sundae, knowing full well I didn’t have enough gold and silver for five sundaes. My eyes opened and I saw Hannah for the first time in what felt like years. I started to smile as Hannah pointed to her right, which led my gaze to the on coming tractor trailer who must have gotten in my lane after I fell asleep and became a sheriff. I soon realized I had drifted in to their lane so I perked up and jerked the wheel to the right making all six wheels squeal and smoke till we were over the double yellows and I was yanking the wheel to the left in hope of correction, locking the e- brake, down shifting, sliding back, gassing it, gaining traction, and we were back on track, in the right lane, going 50.
After being on the road for an hour or two post Perk and Jerk Hannah spotted a store called Frank English’s Custom Boots and we both knew we had to pull in! We pulled back hard on Lil Poot’s reins, then to the right, guiding the good steed to Frank English’s hitching post. After putting Poot in park, we found our masks, wallets, sense of direction, and headed inside. During the short walk from the camper to the door, I imagined all sorts of awesome boots we were soon to see and how difficult it will be to choose just one pair to buy leading us both to walk out of the store cash poor and boot rich. After entering, as soon as our eyes adjusted to the light, we saw that we were not in the boot emporium we expected and that we allowed our desires to lead us astray once again. Frank English politely put down the boot he was working on and asked how he could help. I sheepishly explained how we were expecting an emporium of ready made boots and how I have been dreaming of being a cowboy recently with Hannah supporting me through the whole confession. Frank took it easy and told us we could go up the street to a store that sold lame boots and we were almost out the door when he asked us to halt and listen to what we should look for when buying boots. He then captivated us for an hour using a spare boot as a prop, pointing to various parts and explaining what to look for in a good boot. He then put the boot down, with a loving last look and feel, turned his attention to us, and asked about who we were and where in the world we were coming from. We obliged, telling how we left New York during the pandemic, headed down to NC to live in our parent’s abodes before buying an RV and hitting the road. He cut in a few times with his own stories of living in NYC, moving around, and suggestions for us as we head west. One of those suggestion being Silver City NM where he used to live and where there is a neat coffee shop in the arts district called Tranquil Buzz owned by Dale. With heavy hearts we said our good byes and tootalous, headed back to Lil Poot, who was shuffling his tires in the dirt and humming rock ballads, loaded up, and got back on the road.
As we continued on towards White Sands, we looked at each other and decided we should have bought boots from Frank. With this decision we talked about turning around, but decided on looking him up instead, maybe we could talk about the buying process first. Hannah found an article on him and read aloud, boy, Frank is COOL. I will include the article somewhere in this post. After learning about Frank, and driving some more, we made it to White Sands National Park. We took a right off the highway, like everyone else coming from the east, headed down the one road weaving between the white dunes. We saw the road turned from asphalt to salt, the main component of these dunes, so we pulled off at the pull off just before the change. From there, we got out to stretch our legs, decided to return tomorrow and bike down the gypsum salt road but enjoy the short boardwalk here since the sun will be setting soon. We walked along the board walk reading the info signs as we went, learning about the mice and lizards that adapted to live in the dunes as well as the insane life story this once lake told scientists of how the world used to be and how it was once a youthful, fun body of water looking for a good time, not worried about all its salt flying around.
After returning to Lil Poot, this time he was hunched over in the corner of the parking lot with his back to the sun, head shadowing his gameboy trying his hardest to beat Misty with out taking the proper amount of time to train his Pokemon, got inside and headed west to our BLM land campsite near Las Cruces.
After finding our camp site and getting the camper ready for parked mode, we hung Christmas lights below the cabinets and around the ceiling while listening to Christmas music. After playing with the lights some, they have different modes, one of which reacts to music, we settle on leaving the colored lights, under the cabinets, on solid and let the white lights, our crown molding, dance to the music. Hannah started boiling hot water for Hot Toddies and David probably looked at his instagram feed, soon both were drinking hot toddies and crafting.
