Locked Up In Lubbock

I80 World's Largest Truck stop shining brighter than the Vegas Strip, tempting but we have hours to go, stockpiling our luck for the road ahead.  Hazy blue streaks paint the dawn sky, fluffy white patches cushion ditches, snowy mottled farm fields insulated from this arctic blast.  Leaving home brings last goodbyes, a tug at my heart, the lure of a new adventure and a few months respite from frigid Iowa winter overcomes a sentimental mood.

That voice, "LOOKOUT construction ahead, pothole ahead, police ahead, traffic jam for 43 minutes ahead" jangles my nerves.  Drive off a cliff and she would deftly recalculate from the bottomless ravine while diverting other travelers away from the spectacle.  This miracle of technology provides a convenient scapegoat for the navigator of this ship for which I blame every wrong turn, traffic malady, every rude and clueless driver on the road.  Annoying, persistent and smugly patronizing, we pitifully tolerate our persistent travel guide, blindly following as lost lemmings, we can't leave home without her.

Snow.  Sleet.  Ice.  Mother Nature's way of changing things up for over the road RVers. Spreading out our map of the great USA from the passenger side of the old Dodge, Paul checks out Oklahoma to New Mexico while pulling a few tons at 75 MPH across I35 ahead of the storm, hey driver, drive please.  Amarillo Texas should be ok, it doesn't snow in Texas.  Five inches expected there, will close down Interstates and fill up local watering holes, hmmm. Balmy Lubbock at 36 degrees with fog and monsoons to spruce up the entourage is the least worst detour we can figure, chasing foggy raindrops instead of snowdrifts.  

An unbending highway morphs into a weaving thread around foothills and a very close call with a wide-eyed-within-seconds-of-being-almost-dead deer, jackknifed trailer, a wake up the driver moment. Through dusty abandoned towns, tumbleweeds, decrepit windmills spinning madly nothing to stop the fierce gales across a desolate landscape.   Rock quarries, rodeo grounds, sagging barns, sagebrush, all humbly rooted in the highest producing oil fields in the country. The vast plains of Texas and New Mexico showcase rusty oil rigs among cotton fields spewing a thick sulphuric aroma that smells like money to locals. A simple life raising crops rich in a southern heritage providing clothing and West Texas crude to America. 

Snow covered oncoming traffic gets our attention, cruising through Snow Canyon, Sacramento Mountains and elk country, switchbacks, mountainsides of fragrant spruce limbs drooping under the weight of heavy snow towering over soft slopes of brilliant powder.  Certainly not hysterical, not exactly relaxed and calm, passing numerous Runaway Truck Ramp signs, I prepare for take off.  I did mention we are hauling our home away from home down this treacherous slope?  A shot of espresso right now would push me over the edge.

It has been a long travel day “Locked Up In Lubbock” playing at a hometown honky tonk seems like a pretty good place to ride out a storm.  Frosty blustery sunrise, a thick crust of ice has paralyzed Lubbock, roads are skate parks, a wicked smooth sheen threatens a main thoroughfare littered with vehicles sideways, flipped, smashed, frozen, police blocking all ramps. Crawling ahead, anxious, not really panicking too much, kindof maybe overly nervous, Paul yawns, checking out the mayhem behind us, the sun breaks through finally thawing the city.  This frosted morning “Locked Up In Lubbock” version is more about camper brakes than the county slammer.  Time for a new play list.