The Road to Walmart

I'm sorry, but it is so.  When we first moved here, in the first week of acclimating, I heard about a Walmart and sought it out.  It is the one place that sounded familiar.  My kids were sick, my phone wouldn't work, and I couldn't even go homeopathic and find the food to make a healing tea (that my kids wouldn't drink) at the local grocer.  And so I went to Walmart.

Going to Walmart around here is a commitment; a half-day minimum.  And returning something if you didn't get it right the first time is a painful
200 miles of driving.

Still, it was an adventure.  One of those things you do that is a part of doing something completely different.  At home, I would have just gone to Walmart.  Five miles, that's it.  No public confession.  No freaking out over kids being sick.  The doctor was 4 miles away.  A fistful of top hospitals within a  15 mile radius.  Another, yawn, day in the old routine.

For my family, who cares about such minutia, this is the bend in the road... and, apparently, a smudge on my window ... on my way to Walmart.

There are a few highlights that persistently catch my eye on this road.  It is, after all, not just the road to Walmart, but the road to just about everywhere else, too.  My favorites are a split in the earth, a narrow canyon.  I don't have a photo yet.  It is a fissure in the red earth, where the earth just cracked and pulled apart.  I want to explore it with the kids before the rattlesnakes wake up.  I'll share photos then.

My other favorite is the railroad.

Begun in 1863 and completed in 1869, this boy has seen some history.  You need only watch it snake its way through the vastness to immediately intuit its impact:  Here is nothing, and here comes something; anyone, anything that can travel, can get on a train.  The manifestation of Manifest Destiny.

Watch it cut its way through and know that this railroad, the transcontinental -- the Union Pacific -- brought the East to the West.  My Mom rode this rail from New York to Albuquerque and back again in the 1930's, and I can't see a train pass without thinking of her.

The trains I see now carry cargo, primarily.  Back in the day, though, this train blew the doors open to the west.  What used to take 4 months by travel around Cape Horn, 6 months by wagon overland, and 22 days by stagecoach -- and was by every account long and harrowing, took 8 days and $65 on the railroad.

No matter the day, the temperament, or mode of travel, people are people though.  I found some rules posted by Wells Fargo for their stagecoaches and think they are well-suited for public travel today.

•  Don't snore loudly while sleeping or use your fellow passenger's shoulder for a pillow; he or she may not understand and friction may result. 
• Gents guilty of unchilvarous behavior toward lady passengers will be put off the stage.  It's a long walk back.

And this one about tobacco because common sense is always appreciated and perhaps under-rated in public transportation.

• Chewing tobacco is permitted, but spit with the wind, not against it.