Lots of kids have taken off on trips at a youthful age - what’s so different about mine? That I was a girl alone? That I kept a sketchbook and did oil paintings along the way? That’s not so unique for artists to do. By temperament I am a list maker and planner, doggedly sticking to whatever chart I have laid out, so I was hoping this trip would purposefully throw a wrench into that structured nature. Maybe I needed to not be on a schedule, to have some wriggle room for awhile before ‘growing up’ and settling down to some orderly future-yet-to-be. Some planner I am, I have impetuously jumped into this project before really figuring out how to depict it, how describe my journey in a way that interests anyone else. There are some of us who just plunge into the ocean only to gasp and realize !!@#**&#!! It’s freezing! We thrash around for awhile and then get swimming – so bear with me if I flounder for awhile.
I took off on November 1st, safely staying my first night at friends of my parents’ 
in Phoenix and the next at a sorority chapter in Tucson. I was out of California and on the road! I tooled around the Tucson area getting my feet wet in the desert, doing my first few sketches along the side of the road. But Tucson failed to hold my interest –Arizona was just too close to California, too familiar. I needed to put more distance between myself and home. I headed East, briefly stopping in Tombstone and marking it for another look on my return. A mix-up in dates squelched an opportunity to stay with a friend of my Mom’s outside of Las Cruces, so I pushed on to Van Horne Texas and my first motel room alone. My family had taken many road trips, so motels were a common enough experience - but me being the one to check in without a pal along for moral support was a novelty. (For the life of me I can no longer picture the room – too many other trips and cheap motels have muddied the waters.) Up early the next morning, I headed east and up into the mountains to Fort Davis, stopping to draw a little
and relish in my alien surroundings. Now I was really somewhere different and new. I parked along the road and drew an old farmstead which a crew of Mexicans was doing repairs on, innocent of any potential dangers in the situation. A gruff old guy in a Stetson pulled alongside me wanting to know what I was doing on his ranch and seeing that I was indeed drawing wished me good day. (Recently Googling Fort Davis, I saw that the ruins still bore a strong resemblance to my sketches!) I was raised on a 
steady diet of cowboy shows from Roy Rodgers to Bonanza, my childhood spent wearing six-guns and hats, what a fun surprise it was for me to come over a hill and see the real McCoy – not some Disney version. I stayed awhile and drew, then had ham and eggs at a local diner before pushing on to Alpine, Texas. Once there, I cruised around the little town until I was in the college area and then located the dorms and eventually the sorority chapter. Friendly conversation and my status as a sorority alum worked pretty well to acquire accommodations along the way and much of the time the cost for a night’s stay was next to nothing - in the case of Alpine nothing - a sleeping bag on the floor. At other places, a couple of bucks got me a bunk bed and dinner. Alabama even let me do laundry gratis-I loved that place! Here in West Texas at Sul Ross State College, things couldn’t be more simple - kids were there to learn agriculture, become school teachers, and find someone to marry. It was a very small town, very country, very Texan. Far from the West Coast, I had waded into some foreign, but friendly waters. I was adopted by the locals i
mmediately, toured around with the celebrity status of being from California - a kind of youth Mecca for most of the country in 1971. Here in this remote little West Texas town, I glowed with a golden aura. It went to my head and I stayed on a few days, basking in their infectious adulation, openness and joy. There was little to do in their small town - I spent the days painting from the studio-trunk of my car, the afternoons going to the five and dime for a Coca-cola with the gang. A lack of entertainment venues hardly stopped restless reckless college kids in a state where driving 90 miles to another little town for a hamburger was common, gas was cheap and boredom levels ran high. One night we decided to see the notorious Marfa ‘ghost’ lights, well-known for their spooky and extraterrestrial qualities. Dismissed by skeptics as merely gas or reflected auto lights, their mysterious properties lured us out into the darkness. We drove for hours and waited fervently in a lonely cow pasture, eventually seeing some lights, whose glow was enhanced by a six-pack of beer and the fact that we were young and out late on a Saturday night. The details of those past events in my cards and letters home are sketchy and my recollections piecemeal. As I rummage through them, do I jealously long that I was once more off on a youthful adventure? Maybe, but perhaps I am just as comfortable with the ease of an armchair tour.
Riveting! I can't wait for the next installment.
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