My last morning in the Roswell hotel began with a dream. I was walking up a cluttered stairwell with my mom and a cousin of ours. The cousin and I were kids. My mom was younger and could walk up and down the stairs easily. This was not the reality for my mom, especially in her later years. I had a box of Lego in my hand. As I walked, the box got snagged on the railing and Lego went flying down the stairs. The pieces were now mixed with the other items in the stairs. My mom and cousin helped me pick up the pieces, but I could see they were missing some.
Blocks that we saw at the Petrified Forest of a petrified tree and a desert lizard influenced this part of the dream. They were smaller than Lego bricks. Many of the pieces were these smaller pieces and hard to pick up. As I picked up Lego pieces, some of which I knew weren’t part of my Lego box, I made sure not to pick up anything that wasn’t a Lego or Lego-type thing. It was one thing to pick up extra blocks, but it was stealing to pick up other toys.
Suddenly, my dad entered the dream. He was more of a businessperson than my dad was. The dream dad had just started a business and was telling us we had to go. I ignored his words and kept picking up the pieces. He told my mom we had to go. She kept helping me. My cousin didn’t know what to do. Dream dad yelled at me again and I got in his face and said, “Get the f*** away from me!” I woke up at this point because I realized I had actually yelled that last part. Removing my eye mask, I saw Patti didn’t seem to be disturbed. I took the phone to the bathroom with me and wrote the basics of the dream with the date. That (what you are reading right now) was the beginning of the day. I hoped our travels wouldn’t have the same drama.
We had breakfast supplied by the hotel, gathered our stuff, and hit the road. Going back on the opposite highways we came in on, we traveled for about three hours. Patti wanted to go to the Waffle House in Albuquerque, New Mexico. It was off on its own with little around it. The parking lot was empty. We didn’t know whether they were open. I tried the door. It opened. We walked in and saw an older man sitting at a table with an apron on. He told us to sit anywhere. “Sit Anywhere” should be the state motto. Patti sat where she could see the room and I sat where I could hear the server. An older woman came from the back and handed us menus.
Even though we already had breakfast, we were both about to have it again. You don’t go to the Waffle House and not have breakfast. You also don’t come to the Waffle House and not have waffles. I asked Patti if she was getting waffles, and she said she wasn’t. It wasn’t completely unexpected. She has a history of defying expectations. I wasn’t about to skip getting waffles. It has been a while since I had waffles. The mixture of waffles, butter, and syrup puts a smile on my face. My stomach wasn’t looking forward to it, but it was already dealing with all the other vacation foods. This was just one more. I also got eggs over easy, toast with jelly, sausage, and hash browns. Look out stomach, here it comes.
After eating, we got back on the highway. Every time I type “highway,” I must stop myself from typing “freeway.” I’m just a Californian through and through. We traveled for about two hours, and we were in Gallop, New Mexico. This was our next hotel. It was the El Rancho hotel that was touted as the “Home of the movie stars.” Inside were pictures of all the old Hollywood stars who stayed in the hotel. They named all the rooms after the stars of yesteryear. We were right next to Lucille Ball, but our room was the Jack Oakie room. He was in the movie The Affairs of Annabel with Lucille Ball in 1938. If nothing else, this vacation was a learning experience.
Our room was quant. By quant I mean small. It used an old-fashioned metal key like when we stayed in the tepee hotel. It wasn’t quite as compact as the tepee, but it definitely was old like them. There was a cowboy hat and lasso hanging on the wall. You could take them right off the wall. I checked. We ate dinner at the restaurant in the hotel. Patti got steak that they advertised on the sign for the restaurant. Even if I’m forced to go to a steakhouse, I never get steak. We got cocktails, and the food was good. Both of us had a hard time sleeping. She had to deal with finding a channel she could sleep to and I always have a hard time sleeping in hotels. Eventually, we fell asleep.
Thoughts from Life 
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