And The Road Goes On:
Payson, Springerville, and Globe, Arizona
(The US 191 Tour)
Friday, July 6th- Sunday, July 8th, 2018
by Bud Stratford
Having a traveling companion in my life (in spirit, if not always in body) has changed my perceptions slightly. The biggest change is that I’m suddenly far more immediately cognicant of the fact that somebody is living… and living rather vicariously, and intimately… thorugh me and my road-tripping misadventures. The lonliness of my lonely misadventures has suddenly evaporated, quickly and quietly replaced by a sense of longing caued by missing somebody that I really wished could have been there with me in more than just spirit.
The constant companionship of my sudden-onset exclusive relationship took over rather abruptly, and added a little bit more drive and purpose to my travels than might have been there otherwise. As a result, I lived a little bit harder, and explored a little more thoroughly than I might have otherwise. Once again, my spirit-companion for this particular road trip was my lovely lady, Trish. These are the notes and the excerpts from the road-tripping journal that I wrote for her while I was out and about on my three-day jaunt to and through East-Central Arizona.
Friday, July 6th, 2018, 11:30 am, Gisela, Arizona
I had a few office errands I had to tidy up before I could leave on Friday, but I still managed to bolt out of town by 10:30 am. I’ve made the drive up to Payson more times than I’d like to remember; it is, after all, my every-weekend route up to the mountains when I go up north on my frequent snowboard excursions.
This was, however, the first time I’d ever gone up The Beeline on a skate trip, and it didn’t take long for my slight change in perspective to pay a few dividends. As I was blowing through Gisela, I spotted an easily-accessed ditch shoehorned in between the northbound and southbound lanes. An abrupt turnaround brought me right back to my quarry of intense interest; I grabbed my trusty Skaterbuilt Pig and my just-as-trusty broom, and dashed across a couple lanes of fast traffic to foot myself straight to the ditch’s doorstep.
At some point in the past, this ditch must have been really epic. It probably got skated a lot back in the day; shape-and-size-wise, it was damn near perfect. Since then, somebody has wised up and skim-coated it with the roughest cement imaginable in an effort to “skate-proof” it. It damn near worked; this ditch was a real handful of cheese grater.
But my big softies get me into (and out of) all sorts of trouble. In my world, trouble doesn’t stand much of a chance of going un-skated.
Friday, July 6th, 2018, 12:45 pm, Payson, Arizona
One of my favorite stops up in Payson is the Rim Country Museum, home of the Zane Grey cabin. Zane Grey was a pretty prominent western writer, perhaps the most celebrated (and copied) western writer of all time. The original Zane Grey cabin was just under the Mogollon Rim, closer to Young, but it burned down in the 1990 Dude Fire. Clockwise from upper left: the museum; the Zane Grey cabin, illustration by Yours Truly; movie posters from some of the Zane Grey novel adaptations; a hand-built miniature workshop in the museum; the 1904 Haught Cabin on the museum grounds.
Friday, July 6th, 2018, 2:45 pm, Rumsey Park, Payson, Arizona
Prefab skateparks usually aren’t that much fun, but this one was a real exception. Built competently and solidly out of thick-gauge steel, these ramps were quick and quiet, a fun-times combo that made for pretty good skating. The halfpipe was fast and furious, and I busted out a bagful of stock set-up tricks on that spine in pretty short order. It’s probably the most skating I’ve done in one place, in quite a while. I really was pleasantly surprised by how fun this skatepark was.
See that flat bank at the far end of the park that’s wedged between the narrow quarterpipes? That bank is decievingly steep. It’s much more akin to a harshly banked wall ride, than your typical, mellow flat bank. My buddy Steve Davis taught me how to wall ride back in ’89, and I’m not quite sure that I’ve done one since, so I decided really quickly to re-live a little bit of my childhood by carving a whole lotta high lines on that piece of steel wall. It was really, really nice to feel like I was sixteen all over again for an hour or so.
Friday, July 6th, 2018, 3:30 pm, Payson, Arizona
I had lunch at the Crosswinds Restaurant at the Payson Airport, one of my all-time favorite restaurants. For the airplane geek that lives inside of me, there’s simply nothing better than watching planes land and take off from the restaurant windows, models hanging from the ceiling, and homemade patty melts. The drawings are of a Boeing P-26 Peashooter and a PZL P.24 fighter that were hanging above my table. Whoever built the models must have been colorblind, because the colors seem all wrong, but I thought they looked pretty cool anyway. I need these curtains in my life. Now!
A fellow traveler reveling in her peaceful solitude at the Crosswinds, Payson, Arizona.
Friday, July 6th, 2018, 6:05 pm, Forest Road 237, Forest Lakes Estates, Arizona
The camping situation up here was a little bit sketchy. There are fire restrictions all over the place; apparently, the fire risk up here is pretty damn severe. As a result, many of my usual favorite campsites are roped off and closed, leaving me nowhere to rest my weary head. The race was on between running out of daylight to find a suitable spot, and finding that every single suitable spot available on the entirety of the Mogollon Rim was totally out of commission for the weekend.
As I was reluctantly leaving my favorite Young Road spots to head east on AZ 260, I spotted a forest road off to my left that looked pretty promising. I deftly wheeled the car-and-camper combo around, and headed straight into the unknown. I didn’t have to go very far before I found a “Campground Full” sign, propped up right next to a large, roomy, and surprisingly vacant campsite, complete with a huge turnaround area, a fire ring (evidence of recent use), and a small clearing nestled among a cluster of tall pines. I backed the car-combo straight into the spot, set up my mini-camp, busted out a big book of ghost stories, and promptly fell fast asleep in the cool, crisp, refreshing evening air.
It couldn’t have been long before I was jostled rudely awake by a bellowing voice yelling for somebody to “abandon your campsite!”. Convinced that the forest had erupted in flames all around me, I was frantically trying to find my eyeglasses and bail the hell straight out of there when, all of a sudden (and quite unexpectedly), a gruff, older gentleman’s head popped straight into my back door, asking why in the hell I wasn’t paying attention to his direct orders to abandon my campsite?
“I’m tryin’ with all my might, sir, but I won’t get very far out of this damned forest fire if I can’t see where I’m going.”
“Fire? What fire?”
“The fire that’s forcing me to abandon my campsite, perhaps…?”
“There’s no fire here, fella.”
“Then why in the hell are you waking me up, sir?”
Turns out, he was right. There was no fire. No fire outside of this guy’s undies, at least. The reason he was so hot and bothered is that he thought I had ignored several signs that said that this campsite is closed sue to reforestation efforts. Signs that I had to drive right by in order to get to this site, he said. Signs that I had not, in fact, driven right by though, because… as I profusely pointed out to the fine fellow… these signs simply did not exist.
“There’s another campsite right across the road that I can take you to, though”, he offered. Once he saw that I was not in error, and that I wasn’t a wonton rulebreaker, he suddenly got a hell of a lot more helpful. Okay, fine: I’m usually a wonton rulebreaker. Busted as charged. This is, however, the first (and maybe the only) time in recent memory that I hadn’t actually done anything wrong.
“Back across the 260?”, I inquired. Oh, boy, that’s a long way back down the forest road. Especially in the dark.
“No, sir! I mean, right across this dirt road right here. C’mon, follow me! I’ll take you right on over!”
He was right. Not even fifty yards away was an even bigger and better campsite than the one I had squatted in. True, I was suddenly surrounded on all sides by silently screaming children… but the long distances between the sites muffled the sounds fairly well, so I was happy enough with that.
Saturday, July 7th, 2018, 6:30 am, June’s Cafe, Heber, Arizona
Starvin’ Marvin woke up bright-eyed and famished, as I usually do. Thankfully the camper packs up quick, and Heber’s not too terribly far away. There’s a little breakfast-and-lunch spot called June’s Cafe that I stop in at from time to time. It’s rustic, cozy, comfortable, and they have some really interesting dishes to boot. This morning, I noticed that they had a breakfast-sandwich-on-cornbread option available that I decided I just had to take them up on and throw down the ‘ol gullet. It was super crumbly (as you might imagine it would be), and really needed a fork and spoon to push down the ‘ol hatch… but damn, girl, that was some good eatin’ right there. Best breakfast I’ve had in quite a while.
Saturday, July 7th, 2018, 8:08 am, Snowflake Skatepark, Snowflake, Arizona
Maybe I’m just getting too used to prefab skateparks. I’ve been skating them… hundreds of the damn things… for decades now, so it’s probably high time that I finally figure out how to skate ’em, and skate ’em reasonably competently. But the ones that I’m coming across this weekend have been unusually fun. The Snowflake skatepark was really pretty enjoyable, as far as prefab parks go. I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that I was pleasantly surprised by this one, almost as much as I was pleasantly surprised by Payson’s skatepark.
A few minutes after I took my photos, slipped on my Vans Highs, and started warming up, a teenaged kid showed up, seeming out of nowhere, huffing and puffing, and clearly a little bit winded. It was still really early in the morning; I was simply amazed that I wasn’t the only jughead up and at ’em at such a ridiculous hour. Turns out, this kid Phil skates three miles each way to skate this park, every single day; thus, all the huffin’ and puffin’. That’s some serious dedication, right there. He was a really cool kid, too. It was really nice to skate with somebody else for a change.
Saturday, July 7th, 2018, 9:00 am, downtown Snowflake, Arizona
Clockwise from upper left: A cute little Craftsman at the edge of Snowflake’s suburban residential district; the John A. Freeman Historical Home, built in 1893, downtown Snowflake; The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in downtown Snowflake; statue of Erastus Snow and William J. Flake, the Mormon settlers that named “Snow-Flake”, outside The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in downtown Snowflake.
Saturday, July 7th, 2018, 11:00 am, Nikolaus Homestead Park, Show Low, Arizona
The first thing that I did when I got to Show Low was run headlong into a crowded farmer’s market. The second thing I did, was get hopelessly lost. I knew the skatepark was nearby, and I knew right where it was supposed to be. I just couldn’t figure out where in the f’n hell I was… and because I was so far out of cellphone range, my pocket computer was of no use or help to me at all. So, naturally, all of that made getting from wherever the hell I was, to the place I wanted to be, a bit of a sticky situation.
The Dome is the local skate shop up here in Show Low. It’s more than easy enough to find, thank God. It looks like a giant igloo, so it sticks right out from the crowd of buildings on the main drag through town. It’s been years since I’ve stopped in, so I figured today might be a great day to swing by, and get some useful directions while I was there. As far as “finding the main drag” went, that was easy enough: just point the car in any direction, and drive until I found a really wide road. Wherever I ended up would probably be pretty close to where I wanted to be.
Steve, the chap that was working the store, was more than helpful. The first thing he did was to bust out a handout map that showed right where I was, and right where the skatepark’s at. Now, this is something that I’ve been asking skate shops all across the country for, for a really, really long time; it’s nice to see that I’m not the only chum that’s thought of it. I stayed for quite a while, and chatted up a storm with Steve. He’s a really cool guy that does a lot for his local skate community, so I enjoyed my time there immensely.
The skatepark, however, was not quite so enjoyable. The bigger bowl was adequate enough, I suppose. It’s a bit kinky here and there with uneven coping everywhere… but, hey, at least it’s skateable. Kinda.
The smaller bowl, however, has these super-weird street obstacles shoehorned into the ends of the bowl that end up making everything absolutely unskateable, except for the little bits of bowl that are between the obstacles. And then, to make matters truly shitty, we had more of those annoying little bastard razor scooter kids training for an upcoming competition, “going big or going home”. It was kinda nauseating, so I decided not to stick around long enough to lose my breakfast sandwich.
Saturday, July 7th, 2018, 12:10 pm, Concho, Arizona
My morning commute between Show Low and St. Johns took me through the hamlet of Concho, Arizona, at the junction of AZ 61 and AZ 180A. Believe it or not, Concho was the original site chosen for the state capitol, “due to its prosperous farming” (according to Wikipedia). Today, it’s no more than a “census designated place” that houses a few thousand people across the sprawling valley. Where these few thousand people were, I had no idea. It’s basically a tiny crossroads community out in the middle of nowhere that has seen some better days, and features a few abandonments that I was more than happy to stop and shoot a few photos of.
Saturday, July 7th, 2018, 12:39 pm, St. Johns, Arizona
St. Johns, population-wise, is hardly bigger than Concho. But my first impression of it was of a much larger, much more modern city. Sure, “modern” in this case might have been circa 1950 to 1980… but still, it’s far more cosmopolitan than Concho could ever dream of being.
The skatepark was small, yet impressive. It’s fairly new… “new looking”, at least… and tightly packed into it’s small-spaced footprint, not unlike Prescott’s skatepark. Yet the obstacles themsleves are a bit bigger than average, making for quite a challenging presentation.
My attention/creativity was immediately siezed by the big bank on the far side of the park, next to the love seat feature. The bank had big, prominent coping sticking out on top; that looked to me like an open invite to get some grind time in, and I was more than happy to take it up on its kind offer. The problem was getting my big ‘ol butt up there, which required a quick drop, a quicker roll-in, and then a deft, tight carve to get into optimum slashing position. It scared the craptasticness right out of me, but my cajones made it happen (with a whole lotta help from my trusty Skaterbuilt Pig, 65mm super stompers, and the inherent stability of 219’s).
Even better, I managed to make that happen quite a few times before I left for far cooler, and far less sun-scorched pastures.
The skatepark sits on the periphery of the St. Johns airport. Being the airplane nerd that I truly am, I decided to drive around a bit before I headed into town. It didn’t take long for me to spot a vintage 1920’s airways beacon, sitting all by itself on the far peripheries of the airfield. These beacons are becoming increasingly rare… but due to my extensive travels over the past couple of years, I manage to keep crossing paths with them anyway. They’re always quite a sight to see, those giant, red-and-white colored sentinels silently standing guard against the pitch black of the dark night.
Saturday, July 7th, 2018, 1:27 pm, Apache County Historical Society Museum, St. Johns, Arizona
Museums abound everywhere these days. I came across the Apache Country Historical Museum as I was rubbernecking through town, and I decided to swing on back to take a quick look around. The photo on the right is a diorama of what St. Johns would have looked like in the late 1800’s; the dark lighting of the museum precluded me from taking too many photos here, although I would have loved to. These small-town museums are always a ton of fun, because they celebrate the most obscure histories of some of the most forgotten places in our country. The fact that the museum had ice-cold water fountains and highly effective air conditioning was just an added whipped-cream bonus on top of the funday sundae.
Saturday, July 7th, 2018, 3:47 pm, Springerville, Arizona
My first thought was to camp out at Lyman Lake State Park for the night, and enjoy a swim and a shower, two things that I could have desperately used by Saturday afternoon. But after checking out the three available campsites left at Lyman Lake, I decided that there were already way too many people milling around, and the last thing I really wanted to do was to chill with a million drunk, screaming, and annoying tourists. So I figured I’d make my way to Springerville, and wing it from there.
On my way into town, I spotted a herd of tiny rams… or maybe they were goats with huge horns… I don’t know. This is Everything Skateboarding, babe, not National Geographic. I can tell you all about the differences between a 215 and a 219 (and believe me, they are many, and truly significant)… but identifying these little bush-eating beasties are just outside my intellectual comfort zone. All I know is that they were really aloof, kinda pissy even, and that I had to jump through a bunch of (literal) hurdles and go through some great pains to get a reasonably good photo of the little buggers. But it came out surprisingly well, so I was a fairly happy chap.
I stopped and did all the usual things in Springerville, which meant that I got a turnover and milk at Junk and Java, and then proceeded to the Springerville Heritage Museum to check out some geological factoids, regional history, and contemporary art. I’ve been there and done that so many times, though, that I was in and out of there pretty quickly. Springerville is, after all, my base of operations every snowboard season, and has been for several years in a row now.
Left: The Springerville Heritage Museum, a beautifully repurposed former school. Center: a visual history of photography at the Springerville Heritage Museum. Right: The Madonna of the Trail, one of twelve spread along the National Old Trails Road, downtown Springerville, Arizona.
There were storm clouds threatening on the horizon… and at that moment, I suddenly remembered that I still had a bad windshield wiper on The Econobubble. That could have been really problematic; a few sprinkles could cause me immediate real safety concerns, and a downpour could potentially stop me dead in my tracks. Suddenly, I had a bright and shiny idea! Maybe I could start down US 191 earlier than scheduled. I didn’t really have anything left to explore in Springerville, anyway… and if I left right away, I could probably outrun the coming rain, and maybe even make it to Morenci for dinner.
I’d thought it up so fast, that I didn’t give myself half a chance to think it through particularly thoroughly. It sounded like such a solid plan on the surface of it that I deftly decided to kick the Econobubble into gear, and step straight on the gas.
Saturday, July 7th, 2018, 4:15-7:45 pm, US 191 between Springerville and Morenci, Arizona
Starting down US 191, Nelson Reservoir near Springerville, Arizona
The storm rolls in, US 191 near Nutrioso, Arizona
Near US 191 and Red Hill Road, Blue, Arizona
The best part of my genius is that I’m completely capable of reading the weather accurately, skirting thunderstorms effectively, and staying completely out of inclement weather. The worst part of my idiocy is that I can still manage to completely forget other, equally important considerations (such as food or water) in the rare case that things don’t go quite to plan.
The drive down US 191 started off excellently. It was stunningly beautiful; that assessment stands, and stands solidly, for each and every mile of the entire 117 mile misadventure. The rain-slickened roads, dramatic clouds, and misty fog only added to the natural wonder of the ruggedly mountainous, tree-carpeted terrain. It looked like some super-strong force had picked up the entirety of Appalachia, and dropped it right into the central southwest.
On the other hand, it also quickly devolved into one of the most hair-raising, white-knuckle drives I’ve ever driven. And given my penchant for getting myself into either uncomfortably hazardous situations, or stupidly hazardous situations, that’s probably saying a lot. The Econobubble spent almost every mile in second gear, crawling along at a mere twenty-five miles per hour (or less). The whole drive took almost four hours. But it was, by far, the most scenic four hours of my entire trip. It might even be the most scenic four hours that I’ve ever driven in the southwest.
I hadn’t prepared myself very well for this excursion. Due to the persistent threat of rain, every campsite all up and down US 191 was sitting completely empty; had I taken the time to pack a few snacks and a gallon of water, I could have easily stopped anywhere along the way and enjoyed a refreshingly cool and crisp evening in the tall pines of the high mountains, and made an excellent time of it. Instead, I had to remind myself of all the time that I was saving, and the fact that I’d at least be able to enjoy a piping hot, late-night dinner at a swanky cafe in Morenci.
Saturday, July 7th, 2018, 7:49 pm, Morenci, Arizona
If I had done my homework beforehand, I would have probably discovered that there is no such thing as a piping hot, late-night dinner at a swanky cafe in Morenci…
Morenci is entirely dedicated to the extraction operations of Freeport McMoran. As such, the only thing you’ll find there are the open pits of sprawling copper mines, and the men and machines that work them twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. There also weren’t any piping hot, late-night dinners in swanky cafes to be found in Clifton, either; all I found there was a super-spooky main street that made for really great sketching, but no eating. So what I ended up doing was driving to all the way to Safford… a town that seems to stay up pretty late… and grabbing an un-memorable Reuben before hitting the hay in a Home Depot parking lot at around ten o’clock.
It wasn’t the most comfortable evening… it was hot as hell in the camper, all night long… but at least I got a little bit of sleep in between trains rushing by, and early-morning drag racers smoking their tires at the nearby stop light.
Sunday, July 8th, 2018, 7:18 am, Safford, Arizona
I swung out of my camper at 6 am sharp, promptly ate two breakfasts at McDonald’s, and proceeded straight to the Safford skatepark to get my day started off right. The skatepark in Safford is surprisingly well-designed and well-built; the only sketchy thing about it was the crew of loud homeless people that have taken up residence in the park next door. The skatepark looked very Site Design to me, with the characteristic smooth-steel coping and colored concrete treatments. Thankfully, the Big Bosses Freeport McMoran stepped up and picked up a big chunk of the inevitably large price tag; because of their generosity, the kids of Safford have a legit street park to skate any time they want. Even the old guy that lives grumpily in me (made slightly grumpier by the lack of sweaty sleep in the scorching camper last night) had a pretty good time at this one.
Left: Polka Dot Elephant, Safford, Arizona. Center: Safford Courthouse, and Right: Safford City hall, Safford, Arizona.
I made a few moments in my morning shenanigans to explore Safford in a little more detail… especially the Main Street environs that, outside of big-government buildings, was entirely boarded up and abandoned, just like most Main Streets in America are these days. As I stumbled out of the car into the bright sunshine, gentle breeze, and splitting migraine, I immediately began to hear music wafting its way toward my ears… the kind of music that you’d expect to hear on any bustling Main Street of the 1950’s or 1960’s. It was super-surreal, hearing these upbeat pop dittys seemingly emanating out of the walls of the abandoned storefronts; it was so surreal that, at first, I thought that my exhausted mind might have been dreaming them up. But as I walked up and down that Main Street, I finally stumbled across the sole loudspeaker that was responsible for loudly entertaining the long-lost crowd of ghost shoppers and revelers.
Sunday, July 8th, 2018, 9:22 am, Safford, Arizona
Near Palmer Farms Road and US 70, Pima, Arizona
As I drove down the ribbon of open desert road between Safford and Globe, I could hear the telltale “clack-clack, clack-clack” of the concrete underlayment that defines the quintissentially American two-lane thoroughfare bubbling up through the Econobubble’s stiff suspension. Abandonments abounded everywhere, so I decided to slow my life down just a little bit, and make the time throughout the morning to stop, explore, and photograph about a half-dozen of the more fascinating examples.
The first abandonment that caught my eye was on the near-eastern approaches of Pima. It looked vaguely like it might have been an old gas station, or maybe a small general store, so it caught my attention right away. I wheeled right around, and parked at the Dollar General next door; a short walk brought me right to the old store’s doorstep. I stuck my head into the jamb, and was quite surprised to find several dozen boxes of light fixtures piled high inside from wall to wall, and all the way to the ceiling. I swear, I find the strangest situations when exploring abandonments. This was just the first of the many for my morning; I also spent a few minutes exploring Pima’s nearby Main Street in much the same way I had explored Safford’s Main Street just an hour or so earlier. It didn’t have the wafting mystery-music, but it somehow seemed just as eerie, anyway.
The second set of abandonments was just a few miles down the road at Fort Thomas. This wasn’t just a single building that was left for naught; this was an entire town that seemed to have been abandoned en masse. The central feature of this town was a tall concrete spire dedicated to Melvin Jones, the founder of Lions Club International, who was (apparently) born and raised in Fort Thomas. The clean, sharp, mid-’60s moderne clashed violently with the dilapitation that surrounds it on almost every front.
The third (and by far, the very best) abandonment that I stumbled up was an old motor court, grocery store, and gas station complex on the far eastern periphery of Bylas. There was a peeling and faded sign that proclaimed “Willis Auto Court” painted on the upper corner of the main building, and I quickly realized that I had come across a real prize of 1930’s Automotive Americana. I spent a lot of time at this one, walking the grounds, exploring the ruins, and shooting photos of everything I could fit into my viewfinder, both inside and outside the buildings. It was sad to see it in such a sad state of disrepair, but I was happy to finally find (and explore) the ruins of a bona-fide auto court up close and personal. Many of them are already long gone; this poor pile of sticks and adobe was well on its way to following suit.
Sunday, July 8th, 2018, 11:27 am, Globe, Arizona
Okay, so a few prefab skateparks might be kinda fun here and there (as Payson and Snowflake were this weekend)… but most of them still suck big ‘ol bags of bubblebutts. The “Scooter Memekids Skatepark of Globe” was far more representative of just how atrociously terrible these things can be. The ramps all meet the ground with an abrupt kink, which sucks, and the horrid layout of the place makes everything even worse. Yes, I skated it just to say I skated it. That’s the only “good” thing I can say about it, though. Everything else? All bad, baby. All bad…
Sunday, July 8th, 2018, 12:24 pm, Superior, Arizona
My last stop of the weekend was at “The World’s Smallest Museum” in Superior. I’ve been there before, but it’s still well worth the quick stop. Especially considering that it’s right off the main drag, and right next door to a Circle K that serves tall, cold Cokes with heapfuls of crushed ice (my personal weakness, right there). Considering that the temperatures were already hovering in the mid-100’s, that was a stop well worth making, all by itself; the museum was just a bonus in the equation.
This museum features a whole lotta nothin’ in particular, just a bunch of slightly humorous randomness such as old political pins, buttons, and posters; ancient kitchenware; obsolete personal computers; dusty rotary phones; and offbeat food packaging from grocery shopping’s long-forgotten past. It’s just regular ‘ol, normal stuff, really. Or, maybe more accurately, “normal stuff to old people like me”. Maybe that’s what makes it so fun. I’ve gotta admit, it’s kinda cool to see stuff that I’ve personally used (or owned) in a museum somewhere. Even if it is The World’s Smallest (and quite possibly, Most Obscure) Museum.
It’s time to call it a weekend and toss in the towel. It’s been a long, hard, hot, and lonely day already. I’m headin’ home, babe. See ya in a couple hours. -B.
