July 04, 2005
Trip to the NACR, Day 4
This morning I was worried about finding a dust cap for the starboard trailer hub which lost its bearing buddy somewhere on US 60 between Roswell and Socorro NM. Maybe the aliens took it. K. suggested using the cap from my shaving cream can and some duct tape. After some cleaning and taping it was good enough.
I was worried nothing would be open on July 4, but I called an auto zone who said they had the dust caps. When I showed up the guy said that they had bearing buddy type caps, and so I bought them and after some swearing and pounding with a hammer and a piece of wood the replacement was installed. I still wonder how the original one fell off.
We started out on US 60 and stopped at a place that is much more amazing than Roswell: The Very Large Array Radio telescope. This is a colossal place. Huge dish antennas the size of baseball diamonds set out in an Y-shaped array larger than the city of Washington DC.
We continued on from there and stopped at the Continental Divide where we had a slice of pie in Pie Town, NM. It was so nice to sit in the cool dry air and enjoy the place.
Onward, we continued into Springerville, AZ and then on to the Petrified Forest Park. Another ‘Land of No’ place. We did some walking, looked at petrified logs from millions of years ago and saw Indian petroglyphs from several hundred years ago. I wonder if those people understood what had happened to the logs in the Petrified Forest. They never wrote anything down in a language, so we will never know.
Then, it was on to Holbrook where we were too tired to watch the fireworks. After eating at an Italian restaurant on the main drag, K. crashed early and I’m writing this. Think I’ll go get a beer and celebrate Independence.
