One or More Things I Did Today (The Hitting The Road Edition)

And Let It Be Known, that on July 19th, in the year of 2 thousands and 11, I was up to this:

• Goodbye, Zion. I will return. Until that day, please take good care of my cell phone. Let it not want for anything.
• While driving out the East exit, the locals bid me adieu:

Pick one: "Who do I think I'm kidding: these sheep couldn't care less that I'm leaving." "Hey, psst, want to buy an iPhone?"

• Time to put in some work. Destination: Albuquerque*
• Expansive. The West. A copy of Game Change** on loan from the heralded Cracker Barrel collection on the CD player.
• My gosh, thank you eyeballs, intelligent design, and whomever for teaming up to bring me sights like these:

To my left...
... and to my right.

• Somewhere more or less midway between Zion and Albuquerque, a little girl waving a sign causes me to veer off the road and backtrack a quarter mile. Whenever a little kid is hawking products in their driveway, I'm at least stopping by for a look. And, based on this experience, I'm going to reap rewards for my efforts when this happens on a reservation: pumpkin cookies, still hot from the oven, and a frybread bean and cheese taco.
• After nine hours or so or manipulating a steering wheel, I arrive in the 'Querque. And who should greet me? Oh, it's my old friends duststorm and smoke from the forest fire running amok just north of town!
  
• Deepening my burgeoning relationship with pay-phones, I give Jason - raconteur, cousin of my Mother, at no time member of the 'Querque fan club- a call.
• "Let's meet up in Old Town".
• Deal.
• After dinner, we hit up this place*** for a drink. The decent beer ship has made port in Albuquerque.
• Great catching up, great conversation, great night weather, great beer.
  
• And with that, it's time to call it a night.
• Picture of the day:

Loves me some Cowboy Poetry.

As they say, "It was a Day".

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*A gold standard example of "spellcheck enabled trial and error". What would I do without you, dotted red line?

**A gold standard example of "hm, when you right a book that carries on like it's the gospel truth, should readers be at all concerned that all of the sources are anonymous?". Seriously, while most of the stuff in this book is along the lines of the popular furrows on these characters held by the wide majority of Americans (save for Elizabeth Edwards, who was apparently a difficult woman to be around), utilizing quotes and sentiments only two people in the world may have been privy to, without attributing those quotes to anyone, can make for an icky feeling.
***Looking at the link now, I'm pleased to say the scene in the photo looks nothing like the scene that night.