‘This ******* vacation is cursed’

I was west of Tucumcari when the rain started. The wall of looming blackness we were all driving towards for the last few hours meant it wasn’t a surprise, but the absolute savagery of the downpour was not expected.

As the deluge cut visibility to practically nothing, even those fearless over-the-road truckers in their semis yielded to the better part of valor and pulled onto the shoulder of I-40. I followed suit. Who was I to argue with their judgment?

The rain pummeled the car, drowning out the sound of the podcast I had playing. As I hit pause, I heard the tumult increase. Hard snaps on the roof, hood and windshield. I watched as pea-size hail blanketed the asphalt, standing inches deep on the shoulder, rain rushing in tiny rivers under the accumulating balls of ice.

Just to the south of the freeway, a white-hot streak of lightening flung itself to the earth, turning the gray skies purple. An eardrum rattling peel of thunder followed, before the after image had fully cleared from my eyes.

Not for the first time in the last 72 hours, I clenched the steering wheel in frustration.

“This ******* vacation is cursed.”

Saturday began very well. I got what was an early start for me and headed east. My bag was packed, road snacks had been procured and the gas tank was topped off.

Not long into the drive, I made a quick stop to do a very New Mexico thing, though, and grabbed a couple of chimis at the Allsup’s in San Jon. Some road snacks can only be purchased while on the road.

The interstate in that part of the state is absolutely atrocious, if anyone is asking my opinion. I was darkly amused by the rather violent — almost a speed bump — transition into Texas where I-40 turned into a smooth, satiny joy.

That was last smooth part of my trip.

On the east side of Amarillo, I knew I had enough gas to make it to McLean and my bladder agreed that would be the best place to stop.

Coming up on Mile Marker 96, the plan changed. The car dropped out of cruise control and began to lose speed. The check engine light began flashing regularly. There were many, many words — so many words — that left my mouth as I realized I couldn’t accelerate to more than 20 mph. I aimed for the off ramp.

Texas 207 will take you north to Panhandle or south to Claude. I very much didn’t want either of those, so I settled for the parking lot of the Executive Inn just off the frontage road.

As I sat there, contemplating my life choices, I knew immediately what happened. No, I’m not some kind of mechanical savant. This had happened before.

About six months prior to heading to the Midwest, I was coming home from Bernardo. Accelerating up the on ramp, I realized I couldn’t go faster than 20 and trying to merge into traffic blazing by doing at least 90 mph was not going to end well for anyone, so I parked it on the shoulder and called a tow truck.

Long story short, there’s a known issue with my car’s engine and the only solution is to replace the entire engine. No joke.

“This ******* vacation is cursed.”

So there I was, in the Texas panhandle, eyeballing a shady motel and wondering if I just lived there now.

After several rounds of calls, I concluded I was simply stuck there until Monday. A day alone in the air conditioning with terrible cable wasn’t the worst thing ever, but it sure wasn’t on my 2025 bingo card.

My brother, who’s a wily little country boy, came up with a possible work-around involving a wire coat hanger to get me back on the road and, believe you me, I tried it. The effort was unsuccessful, so bright and early Monday, AAA sent a tow truck to take me back to Amarillo.

Most of the day was spent at an independent auto shop, then over at the dealership. There was panic, a good deal of nausea, a couple of bad spark plugs and some food from Wendy’s. My new besties — Tyler at Christian Brothers and Sklyer and Aubree at the dealership — were patient and kind and did everything they could to help.

They were able to reset the code and get my car running. But then I had to decide whether to keep going or turn back. Thing is, it could happen again in three hours or three years. Who knows?

Knowing the safest thing was to head back to New Mexico, I bid farewell to the Lone Star state and headed west. Billboards outside of Amarillo were full of reminders that Glenrio, NEW MEXICO, was the first place you could legally buy weed. They were very much giving, ‘Go on, git! Ya’ll git on down the road with that,’ energy.

Tempted as I was at that point to make a pit stop, I forged ahead, getting just outside of Tucumcari, when the rain started.

“This ******* vacation is cursed.”