I woke yesterday with the definite feeling the trip was at an end. I'm aware I was heading back toward Texas anyway, but with the sweat and the motels and the repeating sunburn, I knew I was done. It was time to go home.
I think I started to realize it when I began taking longer and longer each night to wind down. The night before last, I had inadvertently stayed up till 2:00 watching some movie in which David Schwimmer invents the breast implant. The night before that, I was up watching "Boogie Nights." It was getting more and more difficult to fall asleep, despite my exhaustion.
Besides, my spirit was diminishing. I still love what I'm doing, but it's becoming harder to get truly excited about things. And I could tell from reviewing the notes on my voice recorder that I was losing coherence; I was speaking with a slur.
So I decided I would skip Bisbee, which I had originally planned as my final stop, and simply plotted my route home. If I didn't run into anything terribly interesting along the way, perhaps I could make the trip in one day.
Of course, I always seem to run into something interesting. Pulling off the highway at Bowie for another disco nap, I accidentally discovered an out-of-business cafe shaped like a giant tepee. I asked the locals about it, but the most they could tell me was that it's been there "forever." I'll have to look into it more when I get home.
I also happened across a classic, Indian-themed motel that looked as though it was undergoing weekend repairs. Being a sucker for nostalgic motor courts, I spent a little time exploring it in the hope it would turn into a story after a little post-trip research.
Then came the giant junk roadrunner outside Las Cruces. I saw him days ago while heading the other direction and had marked him on my map so I'd remember to stop on the way back. From what I know, he was constructed at a junkyard and later transported to this "award-winning" rest stop. According to my measurements, he's 42 feet of shoes, license plates, utensils, toys and countless other throwaways.
By that point, there was no way I was making it home before tomorrow. But I'd make it as far as I could.
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