A Lap Around America

by Shawn Inmon

  End aside.

  Mesa Verde National Park has a well-deserved reputation as the place to see Ancestral Puebloan cliff dwellings. Unlike all the other national parks we’ve toured so far, all the excursions in Mesa Verde require participation in a park ranger–guided tour to see the cool stuff.

  As soon as the tour started, I understood why. In Butler Wash, by comparison, we were standing at a viewing area, looking down into the cliff dwelling 50 yards away or so. At Mesa Verde, we got to go right inside the cliff dwellings. Humans being what they are, if these groups weren’t supervised by sharp-eyed rangers, there would soon be Snickers wrappers everywhere, and someone would have spray-painted Joanie loves Chachi or something across the historic dwellings.

  We chose the Cliff Palace tour and hooked up with Ranger Rick. By the way, the tours cost extra, but the price is very reasonable —about $5 per person. When I commented on how affordable they were, the ticket seller said, “Yeah, it’s almost like we want you to take them.” Everyone is a comedian.

  Rick was all business about protecting the historic site, but he was also a fount of information and a pretty funny guy.

  Ranger Rick and Mesa Verde ruins

  One other word of caution about the Mesa Verde tours. They all are rated “strenuous” by the park service. They all require some hiking, and most require you to climb up and down ladders and over a few hundred very uneven steps. As Ranger Rick said, “The Civilian Conservation Corps built these steps, and it might have been their first day, because they didn’t do a very good job.”

  One woman who had signed up for the tour saw the first ladder, said, “Nope,” and disappeared back the way we had come. Still, the rangers give you plenty of time to rest, and shade wherever possible. Dawn and I had no trouble with any aspect of our tour, although my understanding is that one of the other tours would have required us to essentially crawl through a long, dark tunnel. I didn’t even ask Dawn about that one.

  The First People who lived in these cliff dwellings didn’t have a written language, so there is no written record of their day to day life, but of course they left many clues behind for today’s researchers to interpret. One of the interesting things Ranger Larry shared was that the average lifespan was very short, probably only thirty years.

  Why? Because their diet consisted primarily of ground maize, which is much different from today’s corn —tougher, harder to eat and digest. Many members of the tribe spent the bulk of their day grinding the corn into meal, placing the maize on a flat rock and pounding it with another rock. This action also ground the rock itself, leaving traces of it in their food, which destroyed their teeth and contributed to their short life spans.

  We left Mesa Verde in mid-afternoon and, without plans for other stops, just drove, seeing what we could see.

  One of our favorite things is to follow a country highway to a small town, then drive around it, trying to get a feel for what life is like in, say, southern Colorado, northern Florida, or western Maine.

  One of these little side trips took us to Mancos, Colorado. As far as we could tell, not much of historic significance took place there, and there are no real tourist attractions. But we loved this little town. We drove by what turned out to be the oldest operating high school in Colorado—a three-story building that appears to be made of local stone and immaculately maintained, right down to the bell tower straight out of an Alfred Hitchcock movie.

  Mancos High School

  There was a little farmers market going on. We had farmers markets every Friday when we lived in Orting, Washington, but those were mostly arts and crafts booths. This felt more like a legit farmer’s market, with lots of fresh, local produce. We wished we had more room for food storage. We even bought a chocolate brownie for dessert later.

  Dawn said, “Wait a minute. We’re in Colorado. Marijuana is legal here. You don’t suppose it’s that kind of a brownie, do you?”

  “I don’t think they’re selling dope brownies for a buck each, or there would be a longer line.”

  It was delicious, by the way.

  Our last stop in Colorado was Durango, birthplace of Apollo 14 astronaut Stuart Roosa and Tom Tully, who was nominated for an Oscar for his role in The Caine Mutiny.

  I was excited to see Durango and much of the surrounding environs: Silverton and the Animas Canyon. Why? Because I am a music geek, and I grew up listening to C.W. McCall. If you remember C.W. at all, it’s probably because of his hit that helped spark the CB craze of the seventies, “Convoy.” I never cared much for “Convoy,” but I bought and loved his album, Black Bear Road. One of my favorite songs on the album was called “The Silverton,” about a train that ran right through this area. It was a thrill for me just seeing the place I had heard and dreamed about so much as a kid.

  We stopped off at a city park and saw another train there—the Emma Sweeney. If that name doesn’t ring a bell, you’re forgiven. It was the train that starred in the 1950 movie A Ticket to Tomahawk. She had been left to rot in some Hollywood back lot when someone got the idea to bring her to Durango and restore her, which they did. She now lives out her days in pristine beauty, surrounded by tall hills and sunshine.

  We crossed over into New Mexico, the seventh state of our trip so far, and made it as far as Aztec. There was another national park we wanted to see, but it was too late in the day by the time we arrived, so we found a kitschy little motel called the Step Back Inn. The idea being that it is a step back in time, I believe. It does have an almost Southern plantation vibe to it. Each room is named after an early settler. Nice place. Terrible wi-fi.

  Day Eleven

  The three-day Labor Day weekend was bearing down on us, and we knew that would mean more crowds everywhere—in the national parks, in the hotels and motels, and especially on the highways. So we decided to pick a nice little spot to spend a couple of days and let all that pass us by.

  Today and tomorrow, though, we still have driving to do!

  We started at Aztec Ruins National Park. What first surprised us was its location. Most national parks are, geographically speaking, pretty lonely. This one is right in the city of Aztec. Our second surprise was that the Aztec Ruins have nothing to do with the Aztec people. In fact, they were left by essentially the same people who built behind Mesa Verde to the north and the Chaco ruins to the south. However, the early settlers thought their structures looked like Aztec ruins, so the name stuck, both for the park and the city.

  We’d had such a great guided tour at Mesa Verde that we decided to do the same here. Our guide was a volunteer named George. How can you not love someone who gives up his free time to take tourists through a national monument for free? He wouldn’t even accept a tip at the end, and asked us to donate at the box inside instead.

  The Aztec Ruins, about 900 years old, were once a great center of activity. This was the largest of the ruins we toured, with more than 100 rooms. George showed us how the buildings lined up so the sunlight was focused in a particular way on the first day of summer and the first day of winter, like a mini-Stonehenge.

  He also showed us how the ruins combine architectural styles used in Mesa Verde and the style of the Chaco buildings. Essentially, there was a merger of different peoples, and Aztec Ruins shows how their building styles merged and evolved over the years. To us, Aztec looks like a single ruin, but this group of people lived there for 200 years or more. Just as the houses we build today don’t much resemble those of the early 18th century, methods changed in this community. Building styles came and went as the years passed.

  There are several kivas here, rooms used for ceremonial functions. Kivas served many purposes—for learning, training, religious ceremonies, and so on. We spent an information-packed hour wandering through the ruins with George. One thing I noticed is it seems people were a lot shorter back then. I’m a bit over six feet tall, and I had to stoop to go through several passageways and almost kneel to get through another. Dawn had no trouble with any of them. There are advantages t
o being vertically challenged.

  The highlight of the Aztec Ruins, at least for us, was a completely restored Great Kiva. A Great Kiva differs from a normal one not just in size, but in access. A typical kiva was entered via a ladder from the ceiling. A Great Kiva has a door providing a front entrance, making it accessible to everyone. The restored Great Kiva is not original, but everything possible was done to ensure its accuracy, working from photos that Earl Morris, the original archaeologist at the site, took early in the 1900s. Standing inside the kiva felt like standing in any holy place. It was somber, quiet, and deserving of respect.

  One last piece of information about the Aztec Ruins. Some sections have been left unexcavated deliberately, and there are no current plans to dig there. They will remain untouched for at least a generation, allowing archaeological technology to advance enough to allow a more thorough, less damaging dig. If the whole site had been dug when first discovered, it would have meant destroying many important artifacts, just because the technology had not yet been devised to save them. That will continue to be true as archeology moves forward and new methods are invented. This idea really impressed me, as it runs contrary to how we humans tend to investigate—to charge ahead and let the chips fall where they may.

  We left the Aztec Ruins and drove southeast, toward Clovis, New Mexico, where one of the true highlights of our trip waited.

  On the way, we passed through Albuquerque, New Mexico. Albuquerque looks like any other medium-sized city. Bustling freeways, mile after mile of strip malls and big-box stores, and traffic. Did I mention the traffic?

  We contemplated turning north to visit Taos and Los Alamos, because there were things we wanted to see in both places, but it was important we make it to Clovis for the night, so we passed, saving that for a different Lap Around America, perhaps.

  After several days of staying happily on the backroads of Utah, Colorado, and northern New Mexico, the few miles we had to spend on I-25 through Albuquerque were enough to last us. Soon enough, we were on Highway 60, which was much more our speed. We passed through small New Mexico towns—Mountainair, Willard, Vaughn, Fort Sumner, Melrose. Many seemed to have been hit hard in the economic downturn of 2008 and hadn’t yet recovered.

  Along with cemeteries, we love to find old abandoned buildings and walk through them, if it doesn’t feel as though we are trespassing. We found an old church just outside a town called Yeso that had a great vibe to it, sitting back off the road with both front and back doors standing wide open. The entire interior had been stripped clean, and there was evidence of an interesting battle between a spray painting vandal and someone who seemed to represent the church. The vandal would paint graffiti in the form of prayers, while the other would come and paint over them. There was quite an exchange between the two.

  Site of the great graffiti battle

  It was fascinating to me to compare our own ruins, like this church, which was less than a century old, with the 900-year-old buildings we had seen earlier in the day. We think of ourselves as modern and master builders, but I think those ancient indigenous people had something on the ball, too. I wonder if anyone will wander through our own ruins in the year 3000, wondering what killed us all and why we abandoned our cities. Sorry. These are the thoughts from the overactive imagination of a writer, I suppose.

  When we were still about fifty miles from Clovis, I was doing what I normally did as we drove—looking out the side window and daydreaming—when I heard a little “thump.”

  “What was that?”

  “I don’t know. It almost looked like a spider. Please tell me there isn’t a spider big enough to make a thump when we run over it?”

  “Thank goodness for Google!”

  I opened my browser and searched to see if New Mexico has tarantulas. It turns out that, not only are there tarantulas, but August is their mating season, which makes them much more active. Which means they often wander onto highways and get run over.

  “Well,” I said, “Good news and bad news. The bad news is, yes, that was probably a tarantula.”

  Dawn shuddered, but didn’t say anything.

  “The good news is, we probably killed it. As long as we didn’t just piss it off, so it picks the car up and throws it into the ditch, we’re all right.”

  “I’m not getting out of the car again until we’re out of New Mexico.”

  Of course, that was an exaggeration. As deathly afraid as Dawn is of any spider, let alone a spider that makes a thump when you run over it, I did persuade her to come into the hotel with me in Clovis.

  Day Twelve

  You might be coming into this book cold, not knowing much about me. So, I have to share just a small bit. I was born on February 3, 1960, exactly one year after what Don McLean called “the day the music died” in his epic song “American Pie.”

  Because I was born on the first anniversary of Buddy Holly’s death, and because I had three older sisters and an older brother in the house, I’ve heard and been fascinated by his music, life, and death since I can remember. I have strong memories of dancing around the kitchen with my mom and sisters while “Maybe Baby” or “Peggy Sue” played on our old turntable. As I grew up and my musical tastes evolved to include The Doors, The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, and Pink Floyd, I never lost my love of Buddy’s music.

  That’s why, after I published my first two memoirs, when I decided to write fiction, I wrote a book called Rock ‘n Roll Heaven It was the story of a small-time rocker named Jimmy “Guitar” Velvet, who described himself as “not a has-been, but a never-was.” Jimmy dies early in the book and is transported to Rock ‘n Roll Heaven, where he meets Buddy Holly and the other icons of fifties, sixties, and seventies music.

  Here’s my confession. I wrote that book just so I could bring Buddy Holly back to life in some small way. I wanted to spend time with him and pay homage to what kind of a person and artist I believe he was.

  When we were planning our trip, then, my number one goal was to hit a few of the Buddy Holly sights. His hometown of Lubbock, Texas, yes, but also Clovis, New Mexico, where the Norman Petty Studios are. That’s the place where Buddy cut the vast majority of his greatest hits, like “Oh Boy,” “That’ll Be the Day,” and “Not Fade Away.” The soundtrack of my childhood.

  Visiting the Norman Petty Studios is a unique experience. It has more early rock memorabilia than many museums, but it’s not set up that way. Instead, it’s a completely interactive tour with no off-limits areas, and no velvet ropes keeping you from standing where the great early stars of rock ‘n’ roll stood.

  Our hosts for the tour were Kenneth Broad and his friend Jay, a much younger man who helps out around the studio as a labor of love. Kenneth was a longtime friend of both Norman and Vi Petty, and before she passed, she asked him to serve as caretaker of the historic studio. He agreed and has done just that. He makes himself available to lead tours of any size through the studio.

  A small entrance area features dozens of framed photographs of all the artists who recorded here, including Roy Orbison, Jimmy Gilmer and The Fireballs (“Sugar Shack”), and many others. I glanced toward the corner where an old fashioned Coke machine stood. Kenneth slipped me a wink and nodded.

  “Is that the same Coke machine that Buddy and the Crickets would have used?”

  “One and the same. A bottle of Coke was a nickel back then.”

  Straight ahead was a large picture of Norman and Vi Petty that mostly covered a window. I peeked around the picture and looked straight into the master control room for the studio. This is where I learned we weren’t simply in a museum. Jay saw me peeking in and said, “Want to go in and have a look around?”

  I nodded. Of course I did.

  Jay flipped the lights on and I found myself standing in the room where Norman Petty twisted the dials and created the Clovis Sound, which launched the careers of Buddy Holly and The Crickets and many others. There was an old mixing board, a master tape reel-to-reel for playback, and the aura of history. Sit
ting casually on top of the board was a pair of ancient headphones.

  “These were Norman’s,” Jay said. “Why don’t you put them on and sit down in his chair?”

  I did. Dawn took a picture of me sitting there, in Norman’s chair, in his master studio, wearing his headphones, thrilled. Stunned, but thrilled.

  Shawn, in his own rock ’n roll Heaven

  Jay pulled another rabbit out of his hat. “Would you like to hear the original master recording of “Heartbeat”?

  I did.

  When he played that song, which just happens to be one of my top three favorite Buddy Holly songs, from the original master tape, through the original studio speakers—I admit it, it was so beautiful, so overwhelming, it made me cry.

  That would really have been enough, but we were just getting started. Kenneth and Jay introduced me to another older gentleman named David Bigham, who was a member of The Roses, and who sang on many of the great recordings made there.

  We went into the actual studio where Buddy Holly, Roy Orbison, Jimmy Gilmer, et al, recorded their music. Many of the original instruments are still there, including an organ, celesta, and guitars, and the actual microphones used to record the hits. Kenneth offered to let me play something if I wanted, but all my musical talent is in my ears, so I demurred.

  After we toured the studio, he led us to another area clear in the back—a small apartment with a kitchen, bathroom, bedroom, and living room. Norman Petty didn’t believe he could put a time clock on creativity, so instead of charging by the hour, like most studios, he charged by the finished songs they produced. So he made this small apartment at the back of the studio available to the artists while they were recording.

  It felt surreal to sit in the chair Kenneth pointed at, saying, “That’s where Buddy liked to sit and drink his coffee to wake up.” In the living room is an old couch and coffee table. On the coffee table is a book with a picture of Buddy and the Crickets sitting on, yes, that same couch. As I said: surreal.