…if you have a low bar set for “adventure”
The Doclopedia #2,580
Why I Can’t Go To Texas Anymore…: The Big Chase
This is the part where I describe the ensuing chase and my escape from Texas.
We start heading west, but the freeway is too full of traffic and we can see red lights in the distance. I also spot a helicopter way off.
Insert here 6 hours of driving balls out on various highways and country roads, sometimes with the lights off, all while listening to reports on the radio about “a gang of domestic terrorists” or “rowdy Oklahomans” or “A strange derelict madman” raising hell across the Lone Star State. One report said 30 cops, 200 civilians, and 3 helicopters were on the search.
We passed through towns with names like Canyon, Happy, Hereford, and Black. Around midnight, we stopped in one tiny town and Pansy called her husband JT while I got a soda and a candy bar from vending machines outside a tiny gas station. All I heard her say to him was “Do it.” Then we were back in the car, and soon driving north on country roads where signs of human life were few and far between.
In the wee hours of the morning, we pulled into the ghost town of Glenrio, Texas. This tiny abandoned former Route 66 stop is right off old Route 66 and not far from Interstate 40. We could see a couple of sets of cop lights on 40, just before the New Mexico border.
JT was there by the old Delrio gas station with his big rig and a trailer. When we pulled up, he greeted me and said “Okay, get’er in the trailer” to Pansy. She then drove up a ramp and into the trailer. JT closed it up and as we sat there in the dark in her car, Pansy said, “Now let’s see how crazy things get.”
But they didn’t. JT just drove down old 66 and 20 minutes later, we stopped at the edge of San Jon, New Mexico. Pansy backed the car out, then JT went into the trailer and backed out an old ’55 Ford pickup. It looked like crap, but he assured me it ran just fine.
“I’ll pick it up on my next run to Northern California.”
I hugged him and Pansy, and while he drove her car into the trailer, she told me to “Git! And tell your mom & dad we love ’em.”
So I got out of there and hit the highway home.
And that’s why, even 30 years later, I’m not going back to Texas.
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