Gallup, NM
On Friday, or day 5 of the trip, Wendell and I woke up in Gallup, New Mexico. If you ever venture to this fair western city, I suggest you stay at the Road Runner. We had a lovely night's rest at this very clean and not at all smelly establishment. The rooms were your standard hotel room -- color cable TV, two double beds, cinder block walls and green shag carpet. You don't see many nice hotels these days with green shag covering the floor. The demise of shag carpet has been slow but steady since the last shag living in the wild died in 1975. Now days farmers and ranchers raise the shag on free range farms throughout the South Midwest. The price for these corn fed shag hides are so high, carpetiers must turn to other cheaper and more plentiful resources. Where would the American floor be without the Vinyl Elk of Alaska, the Hard Wood Duck of New England, or the Astroturf sloth from the rain forest of South America?

Around checkout time, we left the Road Runner and headed out to find breakfast. We stopped a few miles away and went in to find a table at a place called Earl's. As we waited for breakfast, a young native American girl came up to the table with a tray of jewelry, so I tried one. If you decide to ever try Earl's famous beaded jewelry, I would suggest swallowing them whole. I nearly chipped a tooth on an amethyst. The little girl wouldn't leave the table, even though I told her I didn't want anymore. Wendell then explained the tyke was selling the items on the tray, not offering them for my consumption. I didn't think I should have to pay, I felt I had been taken advantage of, but since my people had reduced her people to hocking crap table to table at local restaurants, I paid for the broach I had swallowed.



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