It was a Medium Security Prison near Fort Stockton, Texas. A lovely facility, in fact, if one doesn't mind the fact that it is, indeed, a jail. I wasn't too afraid. After all, The Shawshank Redemption is my favorite movie, and I was sure I could find a good friend who knows how to get things. That and I've been to Zihuatanejo.
To get back to reality now, I actually did wake up at the Fort Stockton Medium Security Prison, but not for the reasons you might imagine. I had dozed off soon after leaving Ozona that morning, and next thing I know, Dustin was saying, "Charlieeee, we're heeeeere."
I woke up, rubbed my eyes, and there it was, in all its institutionalized glory. It seems that we had gown bored with the hundreds of miles of barren wasteland that is West Texas. Bored and looking for something to do, Alan and Dustin saw a sign that said "Prison," shrugged, and followed it. At the very least it could have been educational.
So we parked in the visitor's lot and sauntered to the gates like it was the most common thing to do -- Three Jews and a Mexican walk into a prison. We were let into the foyer and gave them our journalist spiel, requesting not an overnight visit as part of the Scared Straight program (Moldman spending a night in prison would have been hysterical, I maintain), but merely a tour of the facilities.
Alas, they were unable to comply, due to prison regulations. It seems this prison incarcerated only sex offenders and sexual deviants, and letting us in would have been "disruptive" to the prisoners. Our shorts, apparently, showed enough leg that they just didn't want to parade us in front of the prison population. Maybe this was a real excuse, maybe they just didn't want to deal with us. I've never thought of my legs as sexy -- in fact, sometimes I seriously consider getting calf implants -- but that was that. We took a picture with Tiny, the happy guard, and set off on the road again.
Presently, we left Texas and crossed into New Mexico. My feelings about the state have been documented, so I was none too happy about this, but trooped on. We took a small detour to go see Carlsbad Caverns, and there was nothing on the road -- literally nothing, no cars, people or houses -- except for cows. So we all got off and walked around a little on the deserted highway -- Moldman and myself a little longer, since Alan and Dustin thought it would be "funny" to "leave us there."
After getting back in the car, we went to the caverns and once again used the press story on the park rangers in charge of the Cavern. One of them, who looked like the Platonic ideal of a park ranger, did not really believe us but let us in anyway. Although he was the first person to disbelieve our story, our streak of "not paying for anything" was still unbroken.
Carlsbad Caverns are cool, to say the least. Stalactites, stalagmites and everything else abounded, as did natural dripping points, bottomless pits, enormous chambers, and tourists with their flash cameras.
Well into New Mexico now, we kept driving. Presently, we came to Roswell, home of Demi Moore and host of a yearly cavalcade of UFO weirdos come to their Mecca. The town, of course, milks these idiots for all they're worth, and Space Diners, UFO Cafes, and Alien Whorehouses lined the streets of this little town.
Because we were on a road trip, and contractually obligated to stop at all landmarks, we decided to visit the official UFO Museum. This was, without a doubt, the worst museum ever. It was only a huge room with a long bulletin board running across the walls, filled with old news clippings. These clippings were mostly interviews with locals who had "seen something." Besides the bulletin board, there were a few aluminum models of what "scientists" imagine the UFO that crashed in Roswell looked like before the crash, as well as mock-ups of the alien bodies held captive in Area 51. I don't know what we were expecting, but Elvis' jumpsuits were far more alien that anything in the UFO museum.
Roswell was not a complete loss -- we did have a great steak dinner there. We set out towards Santa Fe with an eye to getting there by nightfall. On the road, a bat went kamikaze on our car going 80 mph and nose bombed into our front windshield. It kind of disintegrated. Yes, it was pretty cool.
I believe I have alluded to this, but have not really mentioned it explicitly. Because we all took wines at Cornell and fancy ourselves oenophiles, we had a rule on this trip that stated: "If we see a winery, we stop." Sometimes this backfired on us -- we had wine in Tennessee with the consistency of sludge and a taste that blended the twin characteristics of turpentine and diesel fuel to create a spectacularly awful concoction.
Sometimes, however, we were pleasantly surprised. New Mexico, with its hot days and cool nights, has terrific temperatures conducive to grape growing. The winery we visited was terrific, and we bought ourselves some bottles of wine to enjoy later, perhaps in Vegas, perhaps before. The proprietors were very friendly, and trotted out cheese samplers, prompting this priceless exchange:
Moldman: I'm sorry, is this cheese spicy?
Wine lady: Yes, a little.
Moldman: I'm sorry, do you have any non-spicy cheese? I don't really do spicy.
Wine lady: Sure, I'll bring you the sissy cheese.
Boom. Roasted.
Santa Fe was a nice enough town, if you're 70 years old and crave the sweet peace of uneventfulness. There were two bars in the whole town, one which was terrible, the other one which had a 20 dollar cover. Supply-and-demand, I guess. Instead of drinking, we decided to drive around instead.
NavMan really shit the bed here, and promptly had us lost on backwoods "roads" so full of holes, even wranglers would not have dared walk their horses through there. We took two years off the life of the car there, unfortunately, but did get us lost enough to see the New Mexico night sky unencumbered by any sort of light or civilization. After realizing that four guys staring at stars on a deserted road was a little iffy, we used the potential presence of scorpions and rattlesnakes as a good excuse to get back in the car and go back to the hotel.
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