(no subject)

Lo and behold, the Space Shuttle might land at White Sands—we were just there! I saw some cryogenic tanker trucks hauling towards Alamogordo on US-380 out in the middle of the desert. Related? Now we are in Gallup, New Mexico, just a few miles from the Arizona border. Gallup is a "route 66" town with a very active rail line and a zillion motels.

Flagstaff

We're at Macy's European Coffeehouse, Bakery & Vegetarian Restaurant in (also snowy) Flagstaff, Arizona. The coffee is great and so is this coffeehouse. Flagstaff seems like a neat little town, also on the railroad and Route 66, though I am suspicious of any place that seems to subsist mainly on tourism.

There are trains--Burlington Northern & Santa Fe--passing through every couple of minutes. I was amused to see one hotel advertise on its billboard, "No train noises!" Who would want such a thing? Driving along this railroad makes me think of a potential future couchsurfing+trainhopping transcontinental adventure.

At the White Sands NM visitors center I finally bought a copy of Hot Springs and Hot Pools of the Southwest, the purchase of which I've been procrastinating for nearly a decade. Unfortunately it looks like we probably won't hit any on this trip (the prime New Mexico candidates were obscured by snow as we passed through that state). I'd like to finally make the quest to Saline Valley, a remote Death Valley hot spring oasis sometime this Spring.

Here in Flagstaff we stopped in at a good little book store and found many enticing books (including a first edition of John McPhee's first book) but bought only one, by Edward Abbey. I paged through a 1981 edition of a Moon Handbook guidebook to Arizona; reading the description of Flagstaff was kind of sad, since gentrification has obliterated the Flagstaff described in its pages.

We might spend the night here at the apartment of a friend from high school (who is actually not here right now), or a couchsurfing person, or maybe we'll continue on down the road. I'm looking forward to getting to California and spending a few days in one place.