our eighteen-year-old felt like he'd been run out of New Mexico (true, he had been) and hadn't had a chance to say goodbye to some close friends, and was dying to go back and reconnect with them. It was true, a lot of the people he knew wouldn't come see him; we knew there'd be some resistance, but it was important to him to show up. so we packed up and headed off, with two friends, for a three-day trip.

the two friends were a couple of illinois boys who wouldn't mind seeing some mountains and meeting a few new people. he convinced them that it would be good for them, and to him, it would be a chance to get his old friends to meet his new friends.

first we set off straight west across southern iowa, and veered south through kansas city to my daughter's house in lawrence. the following day it was all kansas, oklahoma, and texas, but we ended up in new mexico. on the fourth we went down to see my son in las cruces and ended up in alamo where the kids would allegedly connect. they did, and it was okay, though some did not show up from up in the mountains, as perhaps peer pressure forced them not to? not sure why they wouldn't.

after three days we packed up and went back, same route, same pattern. a night in a cheap motel in clovis, a ten-hour drive to lawrence, and then the last six, through missouri and southern iowa. twenty hours into the drive, a motorcycle swerved into me and i had to brake hard.

i wasn't entirely faultless; he was going too slow in the passing lane, maybe fifty-five, and i, going the speed limit of sixty-five, snuck up on him way too fast. i'd decided not to get on his tail and brake, although that might have been smarter than trying to go around on the right, but he appeared to be just easing along and i thought, why bother him? by the time he figured out he should have been on the right, it was way too late and his moving to the right lane could have cost him his life. instead it caused the three boys to jump a little, and get out of their stupor.

they'd gotten in the habit of staying up all night, particularly in the cheap motel in clovis, as driving was no fun anyway, especially with me as i always go pretty close to the speed limit. when that motorcycle thing happened i was going exactly the speed limit, and if i'd been going any faster we'd all be finished.

my daughter had a new tesla, and stories about how friends in the area had new ones too, and everyone just plugged them in at night but had to look for charging stations on their travels, and in fact she can't use it to visit us in illinois later in the summer, because there aren't enough of them up here. that bothered me a little, thinking the midwest was behind in such things, but it's nothing new, and even she pointed out that it's a problem that will take care of itself in a year or two. the different car companies are making charging compatible, so any electric car can charge from the same cord, and pretty soon the whole country will go electric, and we'll be living in a new era.

it's about time, i must say. the whole world is now putting so much burnt gas in the air that it's literally choking to death, and we really should have converted like yesterday.

new mexico looked very dry, oppressively dry; the rainy season was supposed to start, but it seemed it hadn't started yet, which meant it had been maybe eight or nine months since it had rained. in such an environment it's kind of surprising that people set in roots and live, but they do, it's just a sign of the times, with all these people sitting in desert towns like phoenix as if the whole thing is somehow viable. it's not. sooner or later they'll be fleeing to places like illinois, just like we did.