I remember coming out of the Texas panhandle, I thought ‘it couldn’t get more barren’. I’m sure I’m not the first Eastern dough boy to come rolling through route sixty six to have the same thought, decades have witnessed us. But then the route sixty six reality slaps you in the face and in between the mesas and ancient lava flows lie sand washed trailers giving arid testament to the infrequency of the rains; the two or three junk cars now rimless on blocks scatter themselves across the front yards, needless of cover they lay naked in the blazing New Mexican sun, their shadows, daily, casting a wispy ballet among the shifting sands.

Junkies of a barren time, cannibalized, barren and their frames exposed, echoed roars of rusty dinosaurs, another testament to the tough times. And I, I’m just a passenger, I’m not number ten, no I’m not number nine… I’m just another lone Easterner heading on down the line, learning for the first time the hardship of the last chance sixty nine dollar anywhere in the U S of A Greyhound Bus fare and that the border is just a jump away and you’re just another runaway… heading towards the Mexican Border.