New Mexico Snow

Morning Snow, oil on canvas, 10x10

A storm rolls in behind me to Tucumcari, NM. It has wind and ice and snow, and it forces me to stay in a hotel there for a couple days. I sleep almost all of my first day there - I always forget how exhausting these trips are - and then I sleep 10 hours the next night. That morning I think it might be safe to leave, but it's snowing a little still, and I decide to stay another night. Later that day, I find out there's been a 26-car crash on I-40, just where I'd have been, just about when I'd have been there. 

The morning I leave, I stumble onto Route 66. I drive along, delighted with the great old motels, wishing I'd have stayed in one of them! In places, Route 66 just vanishes, and you're forced onto I-40. In some spots, I find odd dead ends and spurs, and this is one of them. 

A yellow field stretches out before me, spotted with snow. The storm is moving on, gone just enough that I can stop to paint. It will catch up to me again in Arkansas, and then again in Memphis. In all these cases, I miss the most dangerous moments, the deadly stretches, the ice storms that trap people in their cars for hours and hours, cause 18-wheelers to spin out and topple over, and I am grateful for my safe journey. 

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Around the Area

  Here are some of the cool remnants of the heyday of Route 66, in Tucumcari, NM.

OK, this might be THE photo of the trip. I've cropped it below so that you can see it better. I mean, I can't believe I found the Acme Brick Company! I grew up on Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote - and Here It Is! Acme Brick Company!

Silos and barn under a big Texas sky.

The Truth bus. 

I don't pretend to understand this, but I think it's fun and funky and 

sort of beautiful, in an odd, bath tubby kind of way. 

A gorgeous sunset outside of Shamrock, Texas. 

Young cows kick up their heels on a cold day in Arkansas. 

And yes, these are daffodils! It WILL be spring! 

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Dog of the Day

This dog is near the Truth bus, outside of Morrilton, Arkansas.