Aluminum duct tape!

It was lovely and dusty and I used aluminum duct tape to keep the front end of the trailer from ripping off and killing us. Oh wait, I'm getting ahead of myself. After driving a whole day through minimalist landscapes of sage green and brown, you drive into Sante Fe and instantly buy every trinket imaginable in every bright color in the spectrum. It's like "Color! How novel! The folks back home would love it." I'm on to you New Mexicans with your turquoise jewelry and red pepper wall ornaments. We spent the night in Sante Fe with some friends and headed into the dustbowl of Albuqurque around 9 am. Trailer, Brett, and Brett's father were waiting at the T/A Travel Center truck stop off of Hwy 40. It wasn't hard to miss, blinding early morning pedestrians as it sat in the sunshine looking dreamy. Brett's dad talked shop talk with Gary about California gun laws and Brett informed me of how to get the sticky duct tape residue off that was covering the trailer windows and parts of the frame by using carburater cleaner. It was going to be a project trailer. I could see daylight between the floor boards and the thin aluminum walls. We hooked it up to my four cylinder 4 Runner and drove towards the sunrise, well for about seven blocks to a Uhaul to get the trailer lights working. Hours and a pizza later, we drove into the high deserts of New Mexico. We drove. We got gas. We drove. We got gas. We did however find a deserted desert town called Cuervo and stopped to take pictures of the trailer with an adobe Church in the background. We established a good driving rhythm. I drove daylight hours. Gary drove well past midnight every night. It was four days behind the wheel with a one day vacation in Sante Fe. The characters we met were charming. We learned that water is not taxable in Texas. We were wierded out by Oklahoma, though all the goat farms made me want to like the place. Through indian reservations along a long Toll Road called Highway 44, we rolled. Around Joplin, I ran my fingers lovingly across the sideboards of my travel trailer and noticed that the wall had ceased to be attached to the floor on the front side of the trailer in front of the door. The dinette seats had come loose and wedged themselves in such a way as to push the wall away from the frame and turn my trailer into a death trap. Picture driving at 70 miles per hour down the highway with a parachute attached to your vehicle. I did.... for the remaining 5 hours of the drive. We drove up my mom's drive way, Gary eager for the smell of my mom's house and a vodka tonic. Me, eager for daylight so I could learn every square inch of the undercarriage and structural components of the Scotsman.

Cuervo