Geese wheeled and circled and ducks rose off the pond near our house in Santa Fe on the morning that the snow lay thick in the early sun this past week. We were the first people to walk out that day, alongside the fairways. The only life that preceded us had left tracks across the path: coyotes, bunnies, hares and others we didn’t recognize.
A day later we left in early afternoon and drove across Northeastern New Mexico and across the pass into Trinidad. We slept that night in Colorado Springs and the next morning awoke to news of a blizzard screaming across the northern plains, cutting our normal route back to Kansas City.
We considered and chose a southern route, roughly tracking the original Santa Fe Trail for part of the way. We passed near Bent’s Fort, historic trading post. Along the way there were high winds and swirling, light snows. Garden City was bleak and cold. Dodge City seemed lonely and barren. The small towns between there and Wichita were all unremarkable.
We drank hot chocolate and ate baked apple pies at McDonald’s. I would have preferred an espresso and a panini but there was no choice.
The wind continued to blow. The southern route we took was longer and slower than the northern freeway we normally drove but it was drier – a relative term – and open. It was almost 12 hours from Colorado Springs to Kansas City and the whole trip, over the two days, covered a thousand miles.
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