Epilogue?

I’m sorry for the lack of updates.  I’ve been busy with my other projects, of which the main one is my new son.  He just turned three months about five or so days ago.  I’ve also been trying to figure out how to wrap up this small chapter in my life.

I’m still not sure why I became so fixated on Farmington earlier this year.  I started this blog just to write about it, and that concept doesn’t lend itself to a long life.  I’ve covered most of what happened on the trip, or at least what I remember.  Next August it will have been twenty-five years since that month in 1984.  I have one of the best memories of anyone I know, but even for me it’s getting hazy.

Part of me wanted to go back to Farmington in 2008, but financially and time-wise (the start of my family) it just didn’t make sense.  I don’t think driving across the country with a one year old next summer is a great idea, so I don’t think I’ll get back anytime soon.  I will get back there someday, and maybe I’ll find whatever it is I thought I was going to find this past year.

Anyway, back in 1984 things returned to normal.  The kids in school, who picked on me a bit, were all happy to see me back in Veblen.  Everyone was quite surprised that I was back.  “Didn’t you move?” was the common question, but I got some chuckles spinning that answer for a few days.  They didn’t have enough desks the first day I was back, so I had to sit at a table in the back of the classroom.  My scout troop left a note wishing me farewell, and since I was back I could have gone back, but I didn’t.  I was never that into the scout thing, so I just let that lapse.  My mother and her boyfriend resumed their relationship, and were married a few years later.  My brother was transferred from Farmington to Minnesota, then to Arizona, then someplace else I think (he wasn’t there long) and finally he landed…in Pierre.  He’s been there for a while, and I’ve been there to see him a few times.  I still love the city of Pierre, and Dakotamart was still open the last time I was there in July.  My mother and brother patched things up, and now they seem to be quite okay with each other.  I tried talking to my mom about Farmington once or twice, but she doesn’t like talking about “horrible” things.  I’m not sure what was so horrible, but she has a unique way with words.

I was going to delete this blog a bit after it was over, or I was going to reboot it with a new topic or focus.  I’ve decided to let it sit here until I actually get back to Farmington.  I’ll have a place to share the experience , but don’t expect many updates until then (my blogroll links on the side are other places I write, in case this wasn’t enough).  My little man is stirring from his nap, so on this final update until a later date, I wish you all a great 2009, and Farmington…I hope to see you soon.

Alamosa, Colorado

I’m going to come clean about a story I’ve stretched a bit in my life. My mom and I both like to mention how I “led” her back to Veblen at age eleven, handling all the map duties for our trip back from Farmington. The truth is, I was in charge of signs and knowing when to turn. I did not actually choose the route, and I’ve tried to relay the story in such a way that the actual trip planning part is left vague. What I usually say is something like “at age eleven I navigated us back from New Mexico”. The actual person who plotted the course is…someone who’s name I don’t remember. I only know he lived in the same quad-plex as us, and right behind us. He also owned a pickup, and he looked to be in his forties. His apartment wasn’t very messy, and he was watching some channel I’d never heard of called ESPN. He and my mom talked about the route, which bypassed the same way we came. It turns out my mom hated that route, and he knew a way that wasn’t as bad. They talked it over while I watched some baseball highlights. I don’t remember the score or who was playing, but I remember seeing Chris Berman for the first time.

Here’s where I think my brain has it in for me. I remember all that, but I don’t remember saying goodbye to my brother and sister in law. I’m sure we must have, and I kind of remember seeing them briefly the day before we left. I don’t remember seeing them the day we left, which was a Monday (I think). I remember the “V” miniseries was getting the re-run treatment on NBC, and it was being watched at my brother’s house. I also don’t remember helping load the pickup, but I think the mystery man who plotted the course home helped my mother with that. She packed what she could, and anything she didn’t want or couldn’t fit she left behind for the garbage, or she offered it to the mystery man who lived behind us. I doubt she even remembers his name, so I can’t really try to find him to confirm a lot of this.

Monday we left town, with a bit of juice and snack food, and a jar of water. My mom is notorious, even to this day, for bringing a jar of water along on trips. I’m talking about a rinsed out old pickle jar. Even this past year, when I gave mom a ride to my nephew’s wedding in Pierre, she had her trusty jar of water along. A jar we actually forgot in Pierre, so whoever made up her room at the AmericInn of Fort Pierre was probably a tad confused.

Anyway, we were on our way back to Veblen when we hit a…border stop. I don’t remember the exact reason, but it had something to do with Colorado and New Mexico having some kind of produce problem. We didn’t have any fresh produce along, so it wasn’t a big deal. I’m sure the large truck with a tarp over it did have them curious, but she got us on our way, and I didn’t even give up my small bottle of orange drink. I’m sure it’s not called “orange drink”, but that’s all it is. It came in a small plastic bottle with a foil top, and the contents were orange, and the beverage had an orange flavor, but it was closer to an orange flavor like you’d find in orange flavor-ice.  Looking back, it’s funny to think of myself in a pickup truck hiding a small bottle that was zero percent juice.

Once we crossed the border, it was a non-stop driving adventure.  The views were breathtaking.  The mountain roads twisted and turned, and the view from the road was almost straight down in spots.  My mom liked to joke that my face turned green from the dizzying heights, but I think she’s exaggerating, because I only remember being awestruck by the views, and not being carsick from the view down the mountain.  There were parts of the road where trees rolled downward into drops that seemed to have no end.  I also had to sit on the floor to see the tops of the mountains we were driving through.  My mom and I talked a lot about the scenery during the drive, and we probably kept talking so neither of us would think too much about the steep drops and winding pathways.  Of all the parts of the drive to Farmington and back, this is probably my favorite stretch of road, and probably the one part of the ordeal that my mom remembers with fondness, if only for the part where she thinks I was getting carsick. This was also the first road I can recall seeing signs indicating falling rocks.  I didn’t see a rock fall, but there were plenty that had been neatly shoved onto the shoulder by the Colorado D.O.T.

The mountain trip took most of our day, as my mom was in no hurry to get through it.  Looking at the map, it seemed that we were out of most of the high spots by the time we reached Alamosa.  So, she decided to call it a night there.  The first hotel we went to didn’t meet her standards, mainly because of the natural gas heating system in the room (her fear of natural gas was stronger than ever after the Denver incident).  We went to another hotel, and it was to her liking.  The clerk found us a room, and I remember we had to switch rooms once.  I have no idea why.  It was at this time I have my earliest memory of an actual episode of Star Trek.  I knew about it, and I’d seen a few of the movies on TV, but I had no specific memory of the show.  For ten minutes on some channel I’ll never know, I caught the last fifteen minutes of “Day of the Dove”.  The detail I remember most vividly is Kirk using “intership beaming”, which according to the episode was very dangerous and not recommended.  That night we ate at the hotel restaurant, and my mom said I could get something from the hotel gift shop.  I picked this small, fuzzy dog figurine of a basset hound puppy.  I’m not sure why, and it’s one of the few things from the entire experience I still own.  The hotel also told us it would get very cold at night, and that was as advertised, as our truck had frost on the windows the next morning.

Visitor guidance

I was hoping to write more often.  Wait, that’s what I should be doing here.  Anyway, what I was meaning to say was that I was hoping to stretch blogging about the Farmington Visitor Guide for some time longer, but there isn’t much past page 34 that really gets my mind working.  The guide goes on to talk about the Native American culture of the area, a subject of which I had little use then and in the time since my education on the matter has been lacking.  There’s still much of the local Native American culture of the area I now reside in that I should know better.  After that, the guide talks about Arts and Entertainment, followed by a calendar of events.  The one movie I saw in Farmington was Ghostbusters, which should count for something.  Other than that, my entertainment was watching the Los Angeles newscast and the independent channel that had old Battlestar Galactica reruns on.  I never heard much about events, except for one parade I skipped going to that didn’t appeal to me, as I’ve never really been a big parade fan.  By looking at the calendar of events, I’d guess the parade tied in with the San Juan County Fair (mainly because that was the only parade listed for August).

Part of my entertainment also involved walking to school.  My mom gave me rides to school most days, even though I lived in town and within ten minutes walking distance from school.  In Farmington, the three days I went to school involved me walking every time.  It was a really weird experience at the Farmington school.  I went from my own desk in a class of thirteen to sitting at a long table, with kids all around me (one of three tables in the room).  I don’t remember my teacher’s name, but he had a beard and seemed like a very nice person.  The only thing he’d planned on assigning that I took some umbrage with was collecting insect specimens.  I’ve never been a fan of getting my hands dirty, much less touching insects.  My awkward moments were at lunch and recess.  Lunch wasn’t bad, but I remember that recess was brief and went by pretty slowly, as I didn’t know anyone, and no one seemed to be in a hurry to get to know me.  Part of it was my overpowering shyness, and part of it was being the new kid, so I hold no ill will towards the school or the students.  My fondest memory of the school was the one day of gym.  I don’t remember what the game was called, nor do I remember the exact rules, but I know I wasn’t horrible at it, and since nobody knew I was not athletically gifted, I didn’t do too bad.  The main thing I remember was throwing a bunch of nerf footballs back and forth, and that the gym teacher was very encouraging.

I’ve written about the gas station and the grocery store, but other than that I don’t remember much about Farmington.  I remember my mom trying to find a good doctor, because I was often sick as a child.  I remember going somewhere to talk to a phone company, and a few other car trips that had a purpose of some kind, but one that is lost to my hazy childhood memories.  I’ve never really thought of what my mom did while I was in school those three days.  She went from tending a house to a one-bedroom apartment, and she hasn’t worked very much in her life.  She came from the stay-at-home mom era, and now she was staying home in a town that she didn’t know, with a lot less to do, with no garden, lawn or real cleaning to do that wouldn’t take a short bit of time.  It makes the set up for this next part make a bit more sense, and leads me to believe that staying would have been a bad idea.

It was a Thursday night, and I walked into the kitchen and saw a glass of apple juice on the ktichen island.  “Apple juice for me?  Thanks mom” I said, but she was doing dishes and didn’t hear me.  I was a thirsty young lad, so I downed the apple juice with a big gulp.  The problem was that it wasn’t apple juice.  It was straight whiskey.  It was all I could do to not gag and throw up everywhere.  The whiskey came right back up and all of it went back into the glass.  I retreated to our bathroom and did my best to not throw up.  I was suddenly very tired and my stomach was all kinds of not right, so I went to bed, a fact that surprised my mom a great deal (I was never one to willingly go to bed on time).  She kept me home from school Friday, and I never saw the next seven days coming.  After leaving my only home, leaving behind my small class, and a state I’d grown to love quite a bit, I had been coming to terms with living in this far away place, and I was starting to like it.

Seven days later I was back in Veblen, not to leave until college.

things left unsaid, places not visited, and in between a grocery store

Over the weekend Kate and I went to visit my mom in Veblen, and while the thought of asking her about Farmington was in my mind, it wasn’t coming out of my mouth. It was the first visit in months, and before I went home I made my first visit to my father’s grave in at least a year, and my first visit to my grandparent’s grave in at least five years. It left me in a melancholy mood for the majority of the visit (more on that is at the bottom of this post). Asking about Farmington didn’t seem like a major priority, so I decided to skip it on this visit. Mom is a feisty 75 year old, so I’m hoping she makes it a long time yet.

Since I didn’t get any further insight on Farmington from her, I go back to the visitor guide. Page twelve is a throwaway transition page to “local attractions”. I don’t remember seeing many of those in the month I spent in New Mexico. In fact, the only attraction I remember is a grocery store. I don’t remember what it was called, or where it was, but it was very different than what I’d grown up with. Nelson’s Grocery (now Grobe’s Grocery) in Veblen was all of maybe five short isles to walk through. Gordon Nelson was always a friendly face, and all of the cashiers knew everybody by name. On the occasion we bought groceries in Sisseton, Britton or Lidgerwood to visit a Supervalu, Red Owl or Jack and Jill, the store grew by leaps and bounds, mainly in the produce section. This grocery store I remember because it blew my mind. I think every grocery store in Veblen, Britton, Sisseton and Lidgerwood could have fit in it, maybe with some Tetris-style stacking. The shelves were metal, and they sprawled up to a very high ceiling. I could be wrong, but I remember the floors and walls and ceiling either being a dark blue, gray or even black color. They had every kind of cereal I could imagine, and a bunch I’d never heard of. Even the part of the store that had toilet paper had stacks upon stacks of the stuff. I can’t remember the toilet paper section at the Veblen store even having more than two kinds. My sister-in-law took my mom and I to this store, and it was almost too much for my small-town brain to take in. While I was taken in by the size of the store and the heights of its ceiling (and stacks) my mom’s attention diverted to the prices. She couldn’t stop talking about getting four big bags of groceries for twenty-five dollars. I don’t think those four big bags lasted us the rest of our stay, but I don’t remember going to the store any other day during my stay. I found reminders of that store several years later in Wahpeton, North Dakota (and also Aberdeen, South Dakota) and a chain called Econo-foods. Those stores also had the idea of tall ceilings and a lot of stacking (and probably still do, but I’ve not been to one in years). I sometimes would find myself wandering around the Econo-foods in Wahpeton for no reason, other than it reminded me of the day a grocery store blew my mind.

Page thirteen begins to break down all the local attractions, none of which I saw while living in Farmington. If I had my current brain then and had still missed them all, I’d be really cross. Instead, I understand that at the time I probably wasn’t interested and I wouldn’t have appreciated things like the Angel Peak Scenic Area, Aztec Ruins National Monument, Chaco Culture National Historical Park, Shiprock Pinnacle, Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad, Mesa Verde National Park, Monument Valley, and of course the Four Corners Monument (which takes us through page twenty-three). My brain was content to live in a Lucasfilm world of its own design, along with adjusting to a state that might as well have been a planet that the Millennium Falcon crashed on. If I ever have the means and time to visit Farmington again properly, I think I’ll need at least a week if not two to see everything that was just a hop, skip and a jump outside my doorstep. Maybe I could do a second thirty days in New Mexico?

Lord and lottery willing maybe. I just hope I can find that grocery store, or at least where it used to be.

Location? Climate?

First off, I want to apologize for the 404 links in my last post. It seems I saw the top URL and thought that by changing the number in the URL, it would go to different pages in the guide. It turns out the number is the year, not the page number. So, I fixed that, but I won’t be able to link directly to pages in the visitor guide. I’ll just keep linking to the actual PDF (leaving anyone curious to actually find the right page), so I hope all your Adobe Acrobats are up to date.

Page ten talks about Farmington’s location and climate, and while location wasn’t a big deal when we moved, the climate was. Before I can talk more about August of 1984, the December of 1983 deserves a mention, because it is what led us to our new home. The years may have caused me to embellish a bit, but my mom will back me up to this day that the high never rose above the -20 to -30 degrees Fahrenheit for almost three weeks solid. It was probably the coldest winter I can remember, but I don’t remember much of the cold. School was called off a lot during that stretch, and part of the stretch was during Christmas vacation. Another reason I don’t remember much of the cold is that I was a rather sickly kid who was prone to a lot of colds and flu bugs. In fact, during that run of bitter cold I barely remember going outside. My mom made all the trips to Nelson’s Grocery solo at that time. She had talked about moving to Farmington before the cold snap, partly because she was sick of winter and partly because she wanted to reconnect with my brother. I had lived in Veblen all my life, and naturally I was resisting the proposed move away from the only town I’d ever known.

I still remember the night I stopped fighting. It was one of the last few sub-zero nights. I was playing with something, maybe Matchbox cars, maybe Bristle Blocks, maybe my collection of Star Wars figures. I thought I heard something in the bedroom. I knew my mom had gone into the bedroom a while ago, but this sounded…different. I walked over and slowly opened the door. There was my mother, lying on the bed face down, with her head in her folded arms. She was softly crying, and hearing her cry was something I wasn’t accustomed to. She’d had plenty of reasons to cry before then. She’d lost her husband in 1979, her father in 1981, and her mother in the fall of that year. I’d only heard her cry a bit once before, and that was when my dad died. She did all of her crying before she told me what had happened. She somehow managed to do all of her crying for grandma and grandpa when I wasn’t looking. I never thought of her as cold or unfeeling, far from it. I just thought of her as a very strong woman who was doing the best she could, and seeing her crying really shook me. I walked over and asked what was wrong, and she lifted her head. I can still hear her half-cry, half-scream to this day. “I WANT TO GO SOMEPLACE WHERE IT’S WARM!” She went back to crying and I walked out of the room in a daze. I remember just sitting in front of my toys, not knowing what to do or say. Eventually it warmed back to the zero degree mark, and while I never actually said I was willing to move, that night seemed to be when my mom had decided that next winter we’d be elsewhere, whether I liked it or not.  It was also the night I stopped fighting her on that, and other things, namely her future plans with my future step-father, but that’s a blog for later.

Page ten also lists the distances to other major cities, but once we were settled in there wasn’t much need to travel to Vegas, Albuquerque, or Phoenix.  Page ten also shows a bridge surrounded by a lot of greenery, which runs counter to my brother’s statement earlier in the trip of “saying goodbye to green”.

Page eleven goes on to list the various highs and lows, on average, for each month.  My month in New Mexico was in August, so that put me right around the mark of 88 for highs and 59 for lows.  Those temperatures seem to fit, since I remember the days being quite warm and the nights providing many a cool breeze to sleep in.  That also put me in New Mexico in the second wettest month, where monthly rain averaged just over an inch of their yearly eight and and a quarter inches.  I only remember it raining once, but I’m sure it rained a bit more than that.  One other thing that page eleven mentions is how the elevation affects the sunlight.  One thing my mom mentioned during our departure was that she couldn’t handle the sun in New Mexico.  I have reason to believe there were other factors in us moving back to Veblen, so I never gave her thoughts on “the sun being too bright” a second thought.  I am talking about a woman who still refuses to buy a microwave because of “the radiation”.

Next weekend I plan on visiting my mother in Veblen.  Perhaps I’ll bring up the trip back and inquire more about why we left so soon.  I don’t expect to hear anything but the official story, but she is full of surprises.

Visitor guide? It would have been a handy resident guide.

After reading the visitor guide in PDF format and in printout format, I’m left with one thought.

How did I miss so much?

Seriously, Farmington looks pretty amazing in the visitor guide. Granted, they wouldn’t have pictures in a visitor guide that made one think “Yeah, maybe we’ll go to Arizona instead” or something similar. If you click the links, you’ll be able to match up the pages (if anything I type makes your curious) to some of the things I type about.

Pages six and seven feature a lot of hot air balloons. Other than the Goodyear Blimp flying over Marshall once many years ago, I’ve never seen an airship in real life. I can only infer that Farmington must be a ballooning hot spot.

Page eight is the welcome to San Juan county. Already, I’ve learned what county I was living in. All these years I thought my list was complete with Marshall County, Cass County and Lyon County. I can honestly say I never thought about what county Farmington was in. Perhaps I think too much about where I’ve been. At certain times in my life, I have been called nostalgic. The other way people have put it is that I think about the past too much at times. I don’t remember exactly why I started thinking about Farmington again, but looking at this book tells me I don’ t think about the past as much as I worry that I sometimes do (yes, my brain somehow functions operating this way-it is not recommended). My wife gives me some grief now and then for being a “borderline hoarder” but that seems a bit harsh. Looking at this book reveals how little I remember of the town. I think I was able to hold onto the trip back a lot more because of the postcards I bought at various stops along the way, or talked my mom into buying at about a quarter a pop. I have memories of looking at them now and then up through high school. Plus, if I want a rise out of my mom I mention the drive back, of which her memories aren’t quite as fond (though she will smile when calling it an “experience” after a bit of prodding). Of all the junk I’ve held onto, of all the postcards and toys and whatever else I have lying around, I have few things from Farmington that I’ve held onto. Thinking about what I have in our house, the only thing is Marvel’s Star Wars #88 that I was lucky enough to find the next time my mom and I were in that gas station.

The other thing about page eight (and nine, at least the part that doesn’t have the sidebar) that strikes me is how beautiful the area looks. The first eighteen years of my life I resided in a town with big sky and miles and miles of miles and miles in every direction. A bike ride that was never longer than five minutes on any road out of town revealed farm fields with no visible end or the steep (compared to the flat directions) rise of the Couteau des Prairies just to the west and south of Veblen. Moving to a town of 12,000 in the middle of flatness and staying there (minus a few months in a town of 100,000) has made me an admirer of hilly, varied terrain. Just a week or so ago we were watching No Country for Old Men and Kate had to listen to me say things like “wow, look at that beautiful country” at least several times. I don’t want to say that I live in blandsville these days, but it has been a long time since I saw anything new under the Southwest Minnesota sun on a regular basis. At eleven my brain wasn’t thinking about looking around and seeing the natural beauty that I had a chance to see while spending that month in the Four Corners region.

Writing this blog has caused me to do two things. The first thing is some more perspective about not being so frustrated with myself (also to no longer be frustrated with others) for not seeing more of what Farmington had to offer. At eleven, I don’t think I was ready, willing or mentally able to really appreciate all that was around me. The second thing is a new feeling of being old. I’m about to say one of those things that is in the old lexicon’s top ten, with things like “when I was your age” or “get off my lawn”. That thing I must say, that I now understand is:

youth is wasted on the young.

Farmington, New Mexico (arrival)

Once day came (and it came very early) we were briefed on the rest of the trip. My mom and I were being split up. My mom and brother were taking her truck ahead, and I was in the backseat of my brother’s Suburban in between my nephew and niece. I think we had breakfast that morning, at some kind of Fryin’ Pan or Happy Chef kinda place, but I don’t remember the first two meals of that day. The only images that stand out are clouds, mountains and Dr. Seuss.

Clouds were everywhere all day. Try as I might, I can’t remember any sunshine that day. I don’t recall much rain either. It may have just been a cloudy day. I’m not sure if it was cloudy in my mom’s truck or not. Things had been at time strained between them since 1979. That was the year my father died. My brother married within a month of the date, and that is the subject for another blog entirely. My brother was as close with my dad as I had grown to be with my mom. It would only be in the last few years that I found out just how much the rift had grown at the time. Still, my brother’s wife always seemed very nice to me, and while it was apparent something was between my mom and sister-in-law, I didn’t let it affect me. When I look back at that day now, the clouds may have been a perfect metaphor for my mother’s mood that day. Within a span of four years, she’d lost her husband, mother and father. She was semi-shunned by dad’s family, and her feuds with her own had forced her into raising me all by herself, with no job and only death benefits and social security to live on. The fact I could be a handful at times probably didn’t help. She had moved once before, a long time ago. For a few years my dad had moved the family to Wyoming, but that didn’t pan out and they came back to Veblen within a few years. Now, she was on the move again, to a state she’d never been to, with a daughter-in-law she wasn’t totally nuts about at the time. My mom did have a boyfriend of sorts in Veblen, a very gentle man who lived across the alley. I liked him just fine, but I had been a thorn in furthering their relationship. Again, that’s a whole other blog.

The mountains were a beautiful sight, but my other memory from that day was my main focus. My niece and nephew were still in car seats, and a long trip wasn’t agreeing with them too well. So, my job was to read Dr. Seuss books. I think I read every Dr. Seuss book at least twice, and that includes the encyclopedia. The few reading breaks I had I mountain watched, but for some reason I wasn’t into the scenery. The trip so far had seemed like a long road trip, but now it was sinking in that I would soon need to make a new home and new friends. I was teased a lot in Veblen in those days, but I would still miss a lot of my classmates. I knew that Farmington was a much bigger city, so I had no idea what to expect when I arrived. I think I heard my brother say something about my class being as big as my school. That just blew my mind.

When the sun was setting in the Colorado sky, we pulled off the road into some kind of bar and grill type place. It was dark outside, but I remember the inside of the eatery being even darker. I think I had a hamburger and fries. For a fifth grader in 1984, that’s a pretty safe bet. From there we wound our way down to New Mexico, but with a switched up vehicle arrangement. My mom, sister-in-law and myself took mom’s truck, and my brother took the Suburban ahead and led the way. Around 8 PM we crossed the state line, and we were pulling into town around nine. I remember stopping for gas somewhere, and I saw the new issue of Marvel’s Star Wars comic on the rack (#88, a Leia centric issue). I wanted it, but my sister-in-law, weary and grumpy from a long day on the road, wasn’t sold on it. I don’t want to say she snapped at me, but after the ordeal that was our trip, she was in no mood to hear me whine about how I needed a comic book. I can’t blame her for that. Once we gassed up, we were off to my brother’s house. We didn’t have our own place yet, but we were going to look at a place in a day or two. So, my mom was off to the guest room, and I curled up on a couch in a small nook that I think my sister-in-law used as a sewing room. I don’t even think I changed into pajamas. Once I hit the couch, I was out.

There and back

So, while the wife and I were cleaning the hall upstairs, I found an old atlas. That was handy, because I keep forgetting the Nebraska town we spent the night in on the way back. So, I thought I’d post the stops on the way.

To New Mexico:

Veblen, SD to Pierre, SD

Pierre, SD to Denver, CO

Denver CO to Farmington, NM

To South Dakota:

Farmington, NM to Alamosa, CO

Alamosa CO to Big Springs, NE

Big Springs, NE to Veblen, SD.

My mom didn’t want to go through Denver again, so as a fifth grader I helped plan the trip home, and I was in charge of finding all the right roads. Thanks to Yahoo maps, I discovered my route was only 34 miles longer than my brother’s route to New Mexico. That was a neat and unexpected find, as I’d thought I added a lot more in bypassing Denver (besides me thinking my route was much more scenic in Colorado).

So, that’s what I was thinking about today. It sounds like we won’t be making the trip this year, and with a child on the way it probably won’t happen for a few years. Still, someday, someway, I’ll make this journey again. Farmington isn’t going anywhere.