Day 5: I drove out to see the Taos Pueblo today, and while I was visiting the public restroom there, a little dog walked under the door and into my stall. I think it was a chihuahua. He just looked at me, turned around, and walked back out, but it was unnerving, you know? If the animal kingdom is trying to tell me something, they will have to find someone who can speak more clearly.

What else? While I was parked at the labyrinth yesterday, a bird shit on the inside of my car door. So there’s another thing that doesn’t happen every day, and it’s pretty hard to see how it could be interpreted as an auspicious sign. I know I’m not enlightened yet, but come on.

In less scintillating news…

Went to the Kit Carson house and museum in Taos, which was more interesting than I expected. Not many people there, mostly just me and the bikers. There’s a motorcycle rally north of Taos this weekend in Red River, but it seems they like to ride the loop through the mountains to Eagle Nest, Angel Fire and Taos, so they are just everywhere. They aren’t especially scary bikers. More like Denis Hopper wannabes and about the same age. Plenty of black leather and big noise though.

This afternoon, I drove the seventy miles to Santa Fe without getting lost, oh yes. Pretty drive through the mountains with the river down below, and you could even see some people white-water rafting.

Being Memorial Day weekend, it’s crowded just about everywhere. Can anyone explain why Memorial Day is a week early this year? It is messing up my vacation. At 4:30 in the afternoon, there wasn’t an open stool at the bar in the St. Francis Hotel, where I am now ensconced. I don’t know if it’s even possible to find enlightenment without wine.

Day 4: This is the labyrinth I walked this morning. If you’re unfamiliar with them, a labyrinth is not a maze but a tool used to enhance meditation. Or some people just walk them because they like to. This is one of six in the Taos area that the public can walk.

There was no one else around at the labyrinth this morning, so it was quiet and peaceful, and I was pretty close to the end, when a big dog jumped up on me from behind, knocking me off my path into the adjoining path. He was a friendly dog, but still. I never saw him coming. This is a metaphor for something, I thought. Right, but what?

Day 3: How did I end up in Denver, you ask. I don’t know. Clearly I should not be left alone on America’s highways. A sign came up saying “23 miles to Denver,” and then there was nothing for it but to forge on and turn south at the Mile-High City, on the assumption that New Mexico had to be down there somewhere. I mean it’s a state. No one could miss a whole state.

“New Mexico Welcomes You!” Yes! The end is in sight, I thought. But it wasn’t. Because my first stop in New Mexico was Taos, and why would I drive all the way to Santa Fe only to turn north and drive back to Taos. Why, when there’s this mountain road that goes straight to Taos? Well, not straight to Taos. Because it’s a MOUNTAIN.

What a beautiful drive. What a long, long, beautiful drive. Mountains, forests, rushing streams. Rain, fog, two-lane road with approximately 99 hairpin turns. Yellow warning signs with pictures of bear and elk and moose (one was all shot up – the sign, not the moose) and even a couple of cows. I will never be off this mountain, I thought. I will never find Taos, New Mexico. Never see my three daughters and six precious grandchildren again.

But, of course, I did find Taos. And I found the Adobe & Pines Inn, which is more charming than you can imagine, and if my brain wasn’t all foggy and fried, I’d tell you about it.

I have not found enlightenment yet.

Day 2: I like road trips. You just aim the car, set the cruise control, put Linda Ronstadt’s Greatest Hits in the CD player, and sing along as loud as you want (Desperado, John, Desperado). The best thing I saw today was a green van with a sign in the back window: “Need job. I’m Irish!” Which I’ve never thought of as a ringing endorsement, but who am I to judge.

Glitchy things can happen too, of course. Like if you plan your own route and that route includes leaving the straight and endless Nebraska freeway and taking a secondary road southwest into Kansas because, theoretically, it should be shorter and faster if your eventual goal is Santa Fe, right? 383 to 183 to 83 to I-70 West. Simple, except that something happened to 383, I think somewhere around Norton, Kansas, and it got lost and then I was on my way to Oberlin and then Selden and then Colby, which I never intended to visit in this lifetime, but there you are, and let me tell you, once you hit the back roads of Kansas, there isn’t a lot of traffic, like literally almost none, and no human faces at all, just fields, miles and miles and miles of fields, and a few black cows. And a goat. Just the one.

I am not enlightened yet.

So I retired. Oh, way back in October of last year. I could say many things about retirement, but I’m still adjusting. When I’m done adjusting, I’ll let you know.

And with retirement one joins the ranks of aging nomads. Retirees are a restless group, it seems. I have had it in my head for some time to visit Santa Fe. Because I’ve never been to Santa Fe. Also, I think of it as a kind of post-retirement journey, a search for enlightenment if you will. Enlightenment has eluded me till now. Other people have been having epiphanies right and left. I am still waiting for mine. I think I deserve one.

I’ve been planning the trip to Santa Fe for a couple of months, so of course, on the eve of departure I came down with a really horrible cold. These are the drugs I ingested yesterday while packing: Dayquil, Nyquil, acetiminophen, aspirin, Claritin, 12-hr. sudaphedrin, a decongestant, an antihistamine, liquid cough suppressant, spray cough suppressant, and several throat lozenges. At least I think that’s all. I don’t know. I’m still dosing. The result is that I seem to have packed for an extended tour of the Australian Outback instead of two weeks in the southwestern United States. At some point I must have decided to just throw in half my wardrobe and sort it out later. Then there’s the bags of food and CDs and books and audiobooks and things I might need, you never know (a heating pad, a clothesline with little plastic clips), 30 bottles of water, meditation chimes with a little mallet, maps, tour books, pens, highlighters, and a sackful of over-the-counter medications. Truly, I looked in the trunk this morning and thought, what the hell. Then I got in the car and left. Drove for six or seven hours (who’s counting) and landed at the Comfort Inn in Omaha.

So here’s what I discovered on Day 1:

My little Honda Fit can make it from Minneapolis to Omaha on a tank of gas.

72 mph is my speed limit. Not 70, not 75. 72. Go ahead and pass me going 85. I don’t care. I’m all drugged up on Dayquil.

Our American way of life wouldn’t last a day if they took all the trucks off the road. Big trucks rule the freeways!

Freeway rest stops on a Tuesday afternoon are mostly inhabited by people with gray hair. And gray-haired people leading around even older gray-haired people. And people with dogs.

Truck stop waitresses are always friendly.

Nebraska does not welcome you. You know how all the states have those roadside greetings as you’re entering and leaving. (Thanks for visiting Minnesota! Welcome to Iowa!) Not Nebraska. Apparently they just want you to hurry up and get the hell out.

I am not enlightened yet.