Trip Log 3
Captain’s Log Stardate 2022.2.3. We made slow but steady progress yesterday. Left Santa Fe in a slight snowstorm, heading toward Alamosa in the San Luis Valley close to the headwaters of the Rio Grande. The snow continued throughout the day and into the night. The sky is clear now as I write and the temperature if -9. Heat, free to leave with the departing cloud cover, has left. We are cold.
All of my travel party are safe and sound. Asleep. Eight souls, four pairs. Three vehicles. It’s a merry band and I feel fortunate to be attached. If I was better versed in chemistry or physics, I could probably come up with some analogy about a single molecule banging around in a system with a group of pair bonded molecules, but I’m not, so I’ll just let it go at that. The best I can do is say that it probably has something to do with a phantom bond between me and my late wife. In other words, I look like a pair bonded molecule.
Enough. We’re heading off to Red River later today. The launch time is indeterminate. It should be an easy day of travel through lovely territory. A clear sky and sun will put the finishing touches on the nice job the locals did of keeping their roads clear as they banged around in great big machines in bad weather just so we could go to the store if we needed milk. I bet an early settler to the valley would be pretty impressed. I am.
John W. Wilson is the author of The Long Goodbye: A Caregiver’s Tale