Bob and the Rio Grande
|| Separated || Crack|| Latitudes || Orleans || Cherokee || Roswell || Cave || Sands ||
|| Rio || Canyon || Hoover|| Hot || Crime || Trees|| Pacifica || Links ||
We set out on the winding road to Albuquerque. It took a few hours, but the lava fieldswere worth it. A cracked, splintered blackened landscape composed of ancient lava. If thehighway were removed, it could easily be the landscape of a Star Trek episode.
We arrived at the campground at the Rio Grande. The river, famous asthe setting for Westerns, was disappointing. It was just over a foot deep and less thantwenty feet across. Hardly epic in proportion. Upon arriving, I headed immediately for therestroom. There I encountered a man that I am convince was "Bob" from twinpeaks. It was startling. We soon realized that the campground was nothing more than thehome of the Albuquerque homeless community, and that we seemed to be on of only a very fewpeople actually camping there.
The van had apparently reached the same conclusion. We waited for the them, then decidedto find a hotel and come back for them. We did, but they still weren't there. Concernedbut not panicked, we called it a night. The next morning the Hotel (the most expensive inAlbuquerque, oddly enough, courtesy of Sarah), was a buzz with news. Apparently every caron one side of the hotel had been robbed. It was where I had parked, with Sarah parking onthe opposite side of the building out of harm's way. Upon further investigation, we foundthat every car but mine had been broken into. BMW's and Mercedes on both sides weresurrounded by smashed out glass, but my 1986 Toyota sat untouched in the middle of it.
The next day the van was still gone. Our emergency contacts in Mobile and Raleigh had notheard from them. We spent the next night in a much cheaper hotel, where no one bothered torob anyone else's automobiles.
The next morning it hit the fan. The VW bus had spontaneously combusted just outside ofAlbuquerque. It had burned everything. All the clothes and equipment, and every roll offilm that we had bothered to put in the refrigerator (eleven rolls) were gone. The van hadto be removed from the road with a crane as it had apparently become one with the asphalt.Myself, Jane, and Sarah had somehow managed to drive by them without seeing the carnage,and we were therefore to blame. After much drama, each party opted to go forth separately.
Myself and Jane hit the road. While Angie and Kara, in a rental car, were going to drivedirectly to Portland as quickly as possible, we were still going to see America. As itturned out, the best part of the trip was just starting.