Friday: Ft. Smith, Arkansas to Santa Rosa Lake, New Mexico

So we’re doin’ it. We’re officially roadies. This is the section of the trip that we wanted to get done as fast as possible (perhaps too fast). No offense to Arkansas, Oklahoma, Texas and New Mexico, but we wanted to spend as much time as possible with beloved friends, family and weather and the middle southern states just weren’t bringing much of any of those. Three-hour stretches without stopping don’t phase us any more. Our iPods need recharging before our bladders. I just don’t need to go to the bathroom anymore. This might be a problem in the near future but for right now, it’s great.

Today was our first really early start. I’ve been waking up way too early all trip. I’m not sure if it’s my body not adapting to the time changes or just pure excitement. Last night, I wanted to leave at 8a.m., but everyone else wanted to leave at 9a.m., so we compromised and left at 9:45. I woke up at 5a.m. and struggled to fall back asleep, so I decided to go outside and take some pictures because I vaguely remembered learning that early morning is the best lighting for pictures. Not that the best lighting could turn Ft. Smith into Jennifer Aniston, but I tried anyway.

We crossed into Oklahoma and promptly stopped for the first (and certainly not last) McDonald’s breakfast of the trip. The waitress the night before had warned us about “God’s Country,” but it wasn’t until I saw the billboards (“You call it abortion, God calls it murder), bumper stickers (“It’s not a choice, it’s a child”) and mega-chuches right off the highway that I believed it.

I come from places (Vermont, Swarthmore) where religion is a very private affair, so such outward religious preaching and condemnations were very new to me.

Another thing that was new to me in Oklahoma was large-scale wind power. I’m in my second summer working for NRG, a wind resource measurement company in Vermont, but Vermont is far behind in wind energy production. Oklahoma and Texas are in the wind corridor of the United States. They have great wind and are starting to use it to reduce their dependence on coal and oil. Some people complain that wind turbines are ugly or destroy scenic views, but I think they look cool and symbolize symbiotic relationship between energy and nature, rather than a parasitic one.

We stopped for lunch at the Cattlemen’s Cafe in Oklahoma City, another recommendation from the Road Food book that Dean gave us. The diner was in the Stockyard District. Oklahoma City is the first city I have been in that has such a district. It was basically the feedlot center of Oklahoma and probably some of Nebraska and northern Texas as well. The food was good, not superb. The atmosphere was pretty cool though. It is clearly the place that all the ranchers go after they buy or sell their livestock at the market. Vegetarians not welcome. I had the steak soup an the steak burger. Not bad, not great. Back on the road.

Texas was pretty similar to Oklahoma. Flat, lots of cattle, still some God-fearing billboards. We stopped in Amarillo to switch drivers and argue about whether to eat or not. I wasn’t a big fan of Amarillo and it might have tainted my opinion of Texas as a whole. Turner and I left Amarillo a couple minutes ahead of Matt and Danny. We usually drive as a caravan, but I guess we didn’t want to wait for them this time. A half hour later, as we were nearing the New Mexico border, the Audi caught up with us and they went ahead of us. Just as I moved over to the left lane to follow them, a sheriff car zipped into my rear view mirror. We were done. The speed limit on I-40 was a consistent 75, and we were probably going 90. I started to pull over, but he sped by us and was gone. I was in the middle of breathing a sigh of relief when I realized that this was not exactly great news because Matt and Danny were unaware. I immediately called Danny, who answered with an oblivious “YAAAOOORGH!!”, but it was too late. The sheriff already had them. Matt’s roadtrip budget took a heavy hit. Bummer. Matt was quick-minded enough to snap a picture with his Blackberry strictly “for the blog and blog-related purposes.”

Speeding cost us about 30 minutes. Our hopes of getting to a campground near Albuquerque were doomed not only by our renewed commitment to traffic regulations but also by a fast-setting sun. We did not want to set up the tent for the first time in the dark. My fear of snakes made me not want to be anywhere in New Mexico in the dark. We stopped at the first rest area in New Mexico and found a state park halfway to Albuquerque that we thought we could make before sundown going 75mph. I was reassured by the woman working at the rest area that the only poisonous snake in New Mexico was the Rattlesnake and that they really did rattle, so I could hear them and start heading (read “running”) in the other direction. For some reason, her co-worker thought this was a good time to mention that he saw one of these at the campground we were planning on staying at. Not sure if he was trying to be an asshole or not, but he also mentioned that the one he saw did not rattle.

One hour later (and fifteen minutes after our GPS’ died), we pulled up to the Santa Rosa Lake State Park. The sign said that a New Mexico camping license was required and called this area a “primitive camping area.” This might as well have said Rattlesnake Park to me. In democratic fashion, “we” decided to just put our money in the box and set up camp because there was no park ranger (me: who will take care us when we get bitten by the snakes?” My Jordan shorts were off and replaced by my canvas Carharrt pants in about 26 seconds.

We were at a race against the sun. Luckily the tent wasn’t very hard to set up. We had two flashlights. I automatically adopted one of them while I took pictures, set up the sleeping bags and rationed out bug spray. The other three guys shared the other while they wandered around the desert gathering sticks for a fire. The view was amazing.

We didn’t think it would rain, so we didn’t put on the rain cover and had a great view of the stars all night. I had plenty of time to look at them because I couldn’t sleep. One, every noise I heard sounded like a rattle. Two, we decided not to use the air mattress that Teryn lent us. In the wise words of Matt Allen: “These rocks are pretty soft.” I agreed with him because it was dark and I really wanted to get the tent door closed. We learned an important lesson: No matter how soft the rocks feel, they are not comfortable to sleep on.

Sam