Year: 2025

Paris, TX – Day 24: A Giant Rabbit & Another ‘Henge

World’s Largest Jackrabbit

The first stop of the day was to take this photo of the World’s Largest Jackrabbit is in Rails, TX, a town so small Google Maps doesn’t know it exists.

I have been to a few Stonehenge wannabes in my travels; of course, the first was the grand automotive one, Carhenge, in Alliance, NE. There is also a more thoughtful one on the campus of the University of Texas of the Permian Basin in Odessa, TX. And I’ve also been to America’s First Stonehenge replica in Maryhill, WA.

Today I got to see a Pickup Truckbed Henge located in Stamford, TX. Amazingly enough, it isn’t listed among the nearly fifty Henges on Roadside America’s website.

As a bonus, right across the street from Pickup Truckbed Henge is another Roadside America site, Isetta With Spider Legs, which the original tipster identified the car as a VW Beetle. Which is understandable, as there are several Beetle Spider art pieces around.

Ed Note: I had to recreate this day’s adventure because I accidentally overwrote it in creating Roadtrip – Day 11’s post.

Lubbock, TX – Day 23: Faulty Memory & Bombers Away

ND3 and a B-17


 
Today’s Roadside America picture is of the Flying Fortress of the Plains A metal cut-out sculpture of the B-17 bomber on the site of the WWII Hobbs Army Air Field. I had been here before, back in 2023, too bad I didn’t remember where here was.

Today’s destination was Lubbock, TX, which is a little over 300 miles from Santa Fe. It was a short driving day with only about 5 hours in the saddle. I had picked out a lunch spot in Fort Sumner and a Roadside America stop in Muleshoe, TX, to see the world’s largest mule shoe.

This route took me right through Clovis, NM, where I thought the above B-17 was located. I remembered that it was not far from the airport and was visible from the road. After taking a circuitous route all around the airport, I never found it. Plus, nothing seemed familiar.

In 2023 Donna and I took a road trip over to Laurel, MS, to visit the Hometown town of Laurel, MS. Our route was through Hobbs, NM, on the way there and Clovis, NM, on the way home. All three towns were in the running for us to possibly relocate to.

Turns out the B-17 sculpture was in Hobbs. With the planned short day of driving, I decided, what the heck, and would head south. But first, lunch. I fired up Google and searched for a place. The first one up was Mom’s Cafe with a 4.7-star rating. I headed that way, and as I started up the bridge that went over the railroad tracks, I had a hit of déjà vu. I already knew where I was going, Donna and I had breakfast at Mom’s Cafe back in 2023.

Instead of just the 100 miles I had left to go to Lubbock from the start in Santa Fe, I turned it into 240 miles with the Hobbs detour.

Santa Fe, NM – Day 22: Bombs Away

I Always Thought Matt Damon Was Shorter


 
Sally and I drove up this morning to visit Los Alamos and the Manhattan Project National Historical Park. Well worth the visit if you ever find yourself in Santa Fe and have a free afternoon. There are plenty of buildings worth seeing, including the Fuller Lodge and the Hans Bethe House that you can go in. You can peek in the windows of the house that Oppenheimer lived in, and someday you will be able to tour the inside. They are currently working on getting it museum-worthy.

We also went to the Bradbury Science Museum. When I first saw the name, I thought, that’s cool, they named it after my favorite science fiction writer. But, no, it’s named after Norris Bradbury, an essential Manhattan Project scientist who would become the second director of the Lab, transforming it over 20 years from a military outpost to Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory.

We had planned on eating at a place called Blue Window Bistro, but as we walked there was a prominent sign on the door that said Help Wanted, and practically in unison we said, “Uh oh.” We opened the door, and there was a crowd waiting to be seated, so we turned right around. Ended up back home and finished up the shrimp etouffee from the other day.

This is my last night in Santa Fe; tomorrow I turn east and head towards the old stomping grounds of Aiken, SC.

Santa Fe, NM – Day 21: Check Surroundings For Safety or Big Robot, Little Dog

Eighty Foot Tall Robot

Today’s Roadside America picture is of an 80-foot-tall robot that shares a parking lot with a giant spider and a huge wolf here in Santa Fe. It only added a couple miles to my morning run to Dunkin.

After finishing my breakfast and coffee, it was time to head south to the town that Bugs Bunny keeps making wrong turns in, Albuquerque, to visit the Revlimiter Factory to get some nifty custom gauges installed. Adam will install the gauge faces for you for an extra fee, but you have to remove them from the car and mail them to him. Instead of mailing my cluster to Adam, I brought the whole car to him. I disassembled what seems like the entire dashboard of the car with his guidance so we could get the gauge cluster out of the car. Adam then gloved up like a surgeon to swap out the actual faces. We then tag-teamed the reinstallation and assembly of the dash.

I was so busy “fan girling” about being at the epicenter of Revlimiterness that I forgot to take any pictures. Adam actually moved the famous Sharka out onto the driveway, under a tree no less, so that I could pull into the garage. Mona, the transforming ND RF, was parked in one garage bay over. Anyway, the pics below happened once I got back to Santa Fe.

I had one last request of Adam. Some people get Tom Matano, a founding father of the Miata, to sign their trunk lid. Hah, that’s nothing. I got Mr. Revlimiter to sign my trunk lid, right on his sticker. And I got to meet Mabel the wonder dog too, and she loves me. I got the sticker to prove it.

Santa Fe, NM – Day 20: “I Made Rice!”

Gates of Santa Fe 3


Gates of Santa Fe 3 
Tonight was dinner in, and Sally cooked us up some shrimp etouffee. It was supposed to be something else but came as a last-minute addition because there was a nice deal at Smith’s for raw shrimp at $4.99 a pound. This also means she got to try out a microwave rice cooker her friend Kevin recommended.

Ever since she has lived in Santa Fe, she has not been able to get her rice fully cooked. The center always ended up crunchy, and if it was cooked more, the rice would be mushy. She is blaming it on the 7,000′ elevation, but it also might be the lack of moisture in the desert air.

The cooker came with instructions that laid out how much water and how long to cook it for several different types of rice. I was also optimized for an 800-watt microwave, so she had to cook it at 80% power in her 1,000-watt oven. When she tasted the rice, she proudly shouted, “I Made Rice!” Quickly followed by, “There’ll be no living with Kevin now.”

Bonus Roadside America photo:

Life-size Brontosaurus Family

Santa Fe, NM – Day 19: Baby It’s Cold Outside

Shop Here


 
This morning we woke to colder than normal May weather in Santa Fe, the temps were in the mid 30’s. My morning drive to get a Dunkin’ coffee was shrouded in fog. The temperature barely moved, and if anything, they decreased close to freezing. Then it started raining lightly on and off, and there might have been a flurry or two in there as well.

Because we didn’t walk much in Hammond, and yesterday in Santa Fe we barely walked a 1/4 mile before it started to drip from the sky and we turned tail for home, we decided to go walking/shopping at the semi-filled Santa Fe Place Mall. We were still shopping for shoes for Sally, and she did find a pair at another Shoe Show or Shoe Town or Show Something.

Wanting more, we headed over to the almost really empty Fashion Outlets of Santa Fe to the Merrill store. It advertised “Buy One, Get One 1/2 Price.” I was sort of shopping for shoes too since I donated the Skechers Step-Ins because the tread pattern was a magnet for small rocks that I had to pick out every time I walked in them. She found a pair that was on clearance that started at $50 and was marked down to $25. I, of course, found a pair of Jungle Mocs that I used to wear back in my ASCO days and loved, at the full price of $99.

Naturally they take the 50% off of the cheapest shoes, so Sally got out of there at a measly $12.50 while I spent nearly a C-note. When I tried to reason with her that maybe she should give me $12.50 seeing as I bought that pair of expensive shoes, I sort of earned it. What if I didn’t buy shoes? She shut me up with, “I’d just buy a second pair.” Sigh.

Santa Fe, NM – Day 18: All Hail Blue Miatas

The Blues Brothers

This morning I headed over to O’Reilly’s and bought a new set of wipers for the Tucson: 26″ driver’s side and 16″ passenger. As I pulled into the parking lot, I noticed a bright blue Miata. Oooh, an NC Winning Blue. I just had to park next to it and fire off a couple of pics.

We had scattered rain both in Hammond and on the trip home, and the wipers on Santa Fe Sally’s Tucson are the original ones from June of 2023. It is not like they wore out; not a lot of swipes when you live in the desert, but that same desert dries them out. All that is to say, they didn’t so much as clear the windshield as smear it.

She is due to get that windshield replaced on Friday, and they offered to change her wiper blades while they are at it for an extra $75, and she thought she would let them do it. While that sounded like a lot to me, a frequent refrain from the elder me, it is about right. Because of the weather predicted for this area the rest of the week, I told her that if she intended for me to be driving her around in Tucson, she was out of luck. I, for some reason, like to be able to see things while behind the wheel.

All Hail The Miata

It has been raining on and off with differing intensities all day. But we have also had 2 instances of hail today. The first was green olive-sized (no pimento), and the second shorter bout was just pea-sized. Neither incident was bad enough to cause any damage to the car, the top is new taut canvas, and the vinyl wrap probably added a little extra layer of protection.