Flitting reflections on a 3,000-mile trip across the south-west

Driving north from Clovis, New Mexico, we passed a mile-long freight train. It is a regular sight to see very long goods trains inching across the prairies and, on a previous trip, we once saw a train with 152 carriages or trucks or wagons on it.

This time round we saw one with 164. They seem almost endless. Bad news if you meet one at a level crossing – you might as well picnic and have lunch.

And another thing: the bar at the famed Strater Hotel western saloon in Durango, was varnished with paint and stale beer so they could slide the glasses down: “One sarsaparilla coming up”.

Every morning and afternoon, outside the Strater Hotel, they have a mock western gunfight.

Sitting on the rocking chairs, we also reflected that back in Abilene, I had my first experience of riding side-saddle – in a toilet Having had what passed for brunch, I headed for the door with the delightfully and invitingly-named CRAPPER sign upon it, and went inside. It was small, so small, once the door was shut there were only three perhaps four inches between the end of the basin and the door.

So side-saddle was the only approach.

Texas is different. Buddy Holly was a Texan and they have a different attitude. Generally in America, you rarely see the state flags flown, but invariably as you travel through this country, you see the stars and stripes hanging from flagpoles in towns, at malls, private houses, gated estates etc. In Texas, you also see the stars and stripes but in addition and often in preference you see more of the Lone Star flag. There is an attitude that they belong to the USA but are unique in that it was a republic and they never forget it.

A man writing about Buddy said: “I am an American who happens to live in Indiana. Texans live in Texas, which happens to be in the United States. That’s the difference.”

We also noted many American young women in Texas, New Mexico and to a degree in Colorado, seem to speak a full octave higher than those in other states, which are in themselves at least half an octave higher than European girls.

I spent the holiday looking for three in a row: three successive slim American girls between the ages of 16 and 22. I could spot three successive Americans; three successive girls, but it was the three slim that I was having problems with. But I worked at it diligently.

In October, the hunting season starts. In Durango, they told us the elk seem to know. They come down a week before, as if they know they cannot be shot in the valley, and start to graze on the golf course. The bears come too. Black bears are frequently seen around the streets of Durango. They are increasingly wild life conscious, despite the predilection to hunting as a sport. They have “wild animal crossing areas” where you are advised to slow.

There are on average 35 bear-vehicular accidents in Durango every year because “dumb bears are dumb” but that year there were just 19.

I did find one amusing moment with regard to their hunting. There is a popular t-shirt: If God had wanted us to be vegetarians, he would have made broccoli harder to hunt.

There is another, a variation on last year’s theme. A t-shirt warning folks out hiking to take a bell and pepper spray to warn and ward off black bears.

If you see poop, the clue is black-bear poop is round and smells of garlic.

Grizzly bear poop is bell-shaped and smells of pepper!

Just out of that town, we were shown a concrete stand in a niche in the mountains. That is where they place the howitzers during winter to fire at the mountains and get rid of the potential avalanches: once a fortnight during snow season.

We realised when we were in Lubbock, Texas, that we could move on up 100-odd miles to Amarillo, but we couldn’t find anyone to tell us the way. It was only then that we realised we were less than 24 hours from Tulsa. We did not believe we would regret not going to either of them by the time we got to Phoenix.