An Introvert's Vacation, Part 1

I just took a vacation. It was my first vacation in over a year. My typical modus operandi at vacation time is to let my wife decide what she wants to do and tell me where to be, when to be there, and how to dress. This time, none of those rules applied.

We have a roommate. Some of you know that. Art is a really good guy who is working hard to get his life together. He is in his forties, from a small town in New Mexico, a guy who had some problems in his earlier years. He needed to return to Portales, New Mexico to settle a legal matter. It was going to take him about a week. We hatched a plan whereby I would take him to Portales and then tour a little bit of the country,with no particular agenda in mind, for a week while he took care of his business. I would then pick him up for the return trip home.

Portales is a hot, dusty town in eastern New Mexico, almost within spitting distance of the Texas border. The town has little going for it except that it is the home of Eastern New Mexico University and there is an Air Force base relatively nearby. I heard some accents in Wal Mart that definitely were not New Mexico or Texas. Oh, and someone has built an ethanol plant on the outskirts of the town. It is not one of those charming, little towns you would read about in a travel magazine. I doubt anyone goes there on purpose.


I am not going to give you the whole travelogue, but there were a few significant happenings, not all of which were expected. I have a lot of friends in Texas. I have not actually counted lately, but there are at least three of them in the Dallas/Ft. Worth metroplex. I left town undecided as to whether I would visit any of them. That was, after all, the whole point, no agenda, no plan, not needing to be anywhere at any particular time for the best part of a week, just driving where the highway led. Of course those kinds of non-plans never quite work out that well. I suppose they could, but remember, I am a total novice at that kind of non-planning. Every vacation I have ever taken has had a timeline and a destination.

I headed northeast from Portales toward Lawton, OK. The last time I was in Lawton, it was on a day pass from artillery school at Ft. Sill. I realized later it was within a week of 41 years ago that a group of us from the west coast had arrived there. Maybe it was nostalgia, or adventure, or lack of any real plan that got me there. The town had changed a little. Either that or my memory is a lot worse than I had thought it is. I remembered Lawton as a very, small town with nothing going for it except Ft. Sill. Now it is a semi-impressive town of over 100,000 people. Parts of it are very nice. It is even home to Cameron University. The campus was so beautiful I allowed my mind to wonder if there were any faculty positions in my field. I talked with a very nice lady who said the closest they could come is psychology. I do not think so. Imagine all my collegues speaking psycho-babble all the time. Besides that, it would also be very difficult to write about the spiritual battle in Santa Maria from Lawton.


The visit to Lawton definitely took a back seat to the getting there. I spent the day cruising along secondary highways in New Mexico, Texas, and Oklahoma, enjoying the scenery, and talking to God. It was a great day! It would have driven other people nuts. Imagine spending an entire day in the car with just me for company. Ask Art. He did it--twice. I thoroughly enjoyed it.


I had considered heading north and maybe east from Lawton either to visit cousins in Kansas or to check out a couple of the more touristy places I had heard about, Branson, MO and Eureka Springs, AS. I had already committed to visit my uncle in Lubbock, TX on the way back to Portales. Those towns are only a couple hour's drive apart so that should have worked out well.


One of my friends in Texas is a Nigerian by birth. He is also a dentist. I had never met him in person. We met on the phone about fifteen years ago when I was selling professional, dental products and transitioning my life from nothing something. (Or something to something, or whatever.) In that time, he has gone through a divorce and remarriage, sold a dental practice, worked in another practice and is in the process of reestablishing his own again. He has been much better than I have at keeping in touch. I sometimes feel badly about that. So I called and asked if I could come for a visit. He was delighted to have me. I suggested we could go out for dinner. That was as far as I planned.

I had another great day following the Oklahoma and Texas highways--and learning some things I did not know about the GPS on the iphone. (That is another story!) I still arrived at Tayo's house before he got home from work with his two year old son and Chinese food. I got out of the car and he asked where my stuff was. I had not known what to expect from his hospitality, but he had already decided I would stay there as long as I liked. I decided just one night was as long as I could stay because I had about twelve hours to play with before I had to head for Lubbock.

Tayo, Nifemi (the two year old) and I had a great evening sharing our lives and the love of Jesus in his magnificant house. If I lived in that house I would probably never leave. It is a two-story, brick house with over 4,000 square feet of living space and and office. Unfortunately, the Queen of that domain, Mary, had a class that evening and was apparently only home about six hours before she had to be at work as a registered nurse at a local surgical center. I was asleep the whole time so I was not even able to meet her. Maybe next time. I am looking forward to it Mary.


I was off the next morning for the drive back across the western half of Texas. I made it to Lubbock in time for dinner (still not fully comprehending how the GPS works.) and a pleasant evening with my uncle and his wife whom I had not previously met. The next morning we had breakfast and I headed for Portales fully expecting Art to have finished his business by the time I got there.

Now before this post gets completely out of hand and all y'all (Texan for all of you, plural) wonder if there is really a point to this (there is, but it is going to be in Part 2), we will call this one a wrap and see you soon. God bless.