Part 7 of Cross-Country Morgan Retrieval.
Sight unseen, we bought a 1952 Morgan on the other side of the country. Now the fun part: Tim and Margie Suddard get to retrieve it.
Our original plan for day seven was to an easy 4-hour drive to Santa Fe. There we would stay in the historic district and explore the city. After nearly two weeks on the road, however, we decided we should travel a bit farther. We had also had enough trouble maneuvering and parking the trailer in crowded Durango during the July 4th weekend and were not anxious to repeat that experience in New Mexico’s state capital.
So we ventured south on Route 550 out of the Colorado mountains, cut through Taos, New Mexico, and ended up exhausted in Borger, Texas.
The scenery changes on day seven were more dramatic than perhaps any other on our journey. We started in the cool green mountains, traversed desertlike conditions in northern New Mexico, then wound through striking canyons and along the Rio Grande. From there we went through more mountain passes and switchbacks, which almost instantly gave way to the plains of eastern New Mexico and northwestern Texas. Coming into Borger, the landscape changed yet again to canyons and mesas.
Today reminded us of what can go wrong on a road trip. We saw a car engulfed in flames on side of the road—a rollover accident—and encountered the worst weather yet. On the plains, we ran into thunderstorms that seemed nearly tornadic. We soldiered on in what must have been 40-50 mph winds and torrential rain.
We’ve towed a lot of trailers through a lot of terrible weather and planned to pull over, but we were shocked at how the Aerovault never wavered a bit. In fact, it seemed to keep our tow vehicle steady through the storms.
We pulled into Borger, a smelly petroleum refining and crop shipping depot, hungry and tired at 8:30 p.m. The only thing open was what must be the last Bennigan’s in America. We figured they, being in Texas, could make a good margarita. They couldn’t. It tasted like a Walmart smells, so we switched to beer and chicken tenders.
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By Tim Suddard
