"Scattering Scooter... Day 3..."

Scattering Scooter...

Day 3

Travel was rather uneventful... my plans had been to drive on through to Monument Valley, but we decided the night before to have a rather easier drive to Santa Fe and Taos... both in New Mexico.

Right outside of Amarillo... on the west side of I-40, one can see 'Cadillac Ranch'...

You can read about it HERE.  

Essentially, it's an art installation  consisting of Cadillacs buried nose first... and at angles equivalent to the slope of the Great Pyramid of Giza in Egypt.

Did you ever watch the TV series called "Route 66?"

I thought it had the coolest theme song... 

This music was performed by Nelson Riddle and his Orchestra...

Do TV shows today even have theme songs any longer?

Route 66 was established in November, 1926...

... and ran from Chicago to Los Angeles...

Prior to the development of the Interstate systems, highways ran through cities and towns... and brought a great deal to that locality's economy, especially as Route 66 became more and more popular.

As the Interstate system expanded, Route 66, especially from Oklahoma City to Los Angeles was replaced by Interstate 40 (I-40)...

One of the neatest places where Route 66 is still celebrated is in...

It's a damn good thing that my son was born and named before I ever came to know the name, 'Tucamcari'... I would have named him that...

It would have a nice ring to it, I think...

... anyway,  we exit I-40 onto the Scenic Route 66 highway at Tucamcari... and stopped for coffee...

here...

... so we can say we did drive and have coffee on Route 66...

"Get Your Kicks On Route 66"

The Late Great Nat King Cole

... and after the coffee, we headed on West bound...

We made our way to and through Santa Fe and headed towards Taos... there was a place that I recall from previous trips there... as possibly being a wonderful place for some of Larry's ashes...

This is the scenery to the West...
this is the upper Rio Grande...

Yes, that one...

This is the scenery to the North...

towards Taos...

the Sangre de Cristo Mountains...

... and it's here where I  first Scattered Scooter.

It's beautiful...

... and I had to remember the number of times that I had threatened to pull to the side of the road and throw his ass out of the car....  it honestly didn't happen this way, but, hey... I get to tell the story... no?

It was difficult... leaving behind the physical remains of a friend... and I realized then, that is really IS ashes to ashes... dust to dust.  I had read that the cremains will break down less than a week and will seep into the soil...

I had some words and thoughts that I shared with him... 

and I left.

Later, while looking around in a really cool antique shop in Taos...

I spotted these...

A pair of old silver cuff links that spoke to me...

There is a passage that I have read in some book  I have on my book shelf... it mentions that the pain we feel when someone dies and leaves us exists... because when they left, they took a little piece of us with them... that IS our hurt... that IS our pain...

... and eventually we get to the point where we can smile and laugh about them, and that is when we realize that they have left a little bit of themselves with us.

So there is a give-and-take... I've always felt that Life had a great deal of give-and-take to it... so my thoughts were... if I am going to leave Scooter's ashes there, the cuff links would come back home with me. I've always liked Native American motifs any way...


Taos, New Mexico... this was home for Dennis Hopper... I would like to imagine that the spirits of these two guys might hang out together from time to time... discuss movies and booze and such...

I hope Dennis takes it easy on Scooter...

I wouldn't...

Rest Well, my friend...

~shoes~