Day 20: Flagstaff NM - Truth Or Consequences NM

When I finally rolled into Flagstaff last night, Nice Girl Valentina informed me that I had been upgraded from the Missis-Kwin-bedded broom cupboard I had reserved to a King Suite.  Bigger bed!  Separate sitting/blogging area!  Two TVs (neither of which got switched on¹)!  Two bathrooms!  I'd have preferred one big one with a proper-sized bath in it, but hey!  And then, the horror!  Breakfast is in a separate building and, and, IT DIDN'T HAVE WIFI!  What kind of an appalling low-rent dosshouse have I found myself in!  The "Arizona Sun" is a poor substitute for actual news, though to be fair they did devote a whole two column inches to Bloody Stupid Johnson's ongoing barney with the Supreme Court.

Anyway, where to go today?  Heads for California, tails for New Mexico.  Tails it is and I can add Truth Or Consequences to a list including Twatt (Orkney), Boring (Oregon), Twatt (Shetland) and Elephant Butte City (New Mexico).  Actually I haven't been to the last one yet but as it's just next door to Truth Or Consequences I will do so in the morning.  According to Wikinaccurate:

Originally named Hot Springs, the city changed its name to "Truth or Consequences", the title of a popular NBC Radio program. In March 1950, Ralph Edwards, the host of the radio quiz show Truth or Consequences, announced that he would air the program on its 10th anniversary from the first town that renamed itself after the show; Hot Springs officially changed its name on March 31, 1950, and the program was broadcast from there the following evening.

The only other place named after a quiz show is Blankety-Blank, Wiltshire, though officially it's still called "Swindon".

First there was the small matter of Emily to attend to.  Close observation of her disgusting rebooting habit seems to show a wonkiness in her detection of being plugged into an external power source, in that she doesn't do it when running on her internal battery.  Because she is an elderly lady by consumer electronics standards², however, her battery lasts an even shorter time than Bloody Stupid Johnson's Commons majority, so I can't just use her on battery power and recharge overnight.

Now it seems that Wolmart do not, when they say "In stock", mean that an item is sitting on the shelf of the local branch waiting to be seized, dragged off to the tills and duly purchased, no.  But you can do a "Click & Collect" thing.  Excellent.  I shall do that.

Oh.  What manner of swivel-eyed loon programmed your Webby SCIENCE, Mr Wol?  How very dare you insist I pay with a credit card with a USAnian billing address?  Get directly tae fuck, you blithering xenophobes.  Time for Plan B:

• program final destination into Emily's tiny, damaged brain
• write route summary on piece of paper
• use Emily to find on-ramp for I-40
• get held up at level crossing by mile-and-a-half-long four-loco BNSF freight train of double-stacked containers carrying USAnia's trade deficit withe the Fiendish Godless Hordes™ of Beijing
• switch her off and don't switch her back on until Exit 79 of I-25
• Miss the turn onto US-160 in Holbrook

That last one was unintentional, by the way.  Mr Google suggested going to Holbrook and then across country to Socorro, while Emily wanted I-40 to Albuquerque, then I-25 south to here.  Mr Google won.  Not that it made much difference, as most of either route was across the Scorching Plains™ of both Arizona and New Mexico.  But Mr Google's route allowed a scenic detour off US-60 at Eagar and up into the mountains for a brief, but pleasant interlude.

Nelson Reservoir: a nice spot for a picnic

Although New Mexico is known for its Scorching Plains™ it's got some nice mountains too, which are home to the advance party of our new reptilian overlords:

New Mexico: not all Scorching Plains™

I for one welcome ect ect
NB: Reptilian overlord is about the length of my little finger

The detour got me back on US-60 just west of the VLA - the Very Large Array of radio telescopes.  They have moved some of them across the road since the last time I came up here, onna railway line.  Unfortunately, some rufty-tufty hairy-arsed workmen were Doing Things to said railway line, which meant the lay-by, telescopes for the viewing off, was closed.  And there was a huge drop-off at the side of the road to go round the RTHA workmen, which I suspect was the cause of Mr Motorhome's woes.

Many motorhomists over here will tow a shopping/sightseeing vehicle behind their camper-bus and some folks - like Mr Motorhome - use a trailer-like device to lift the car's driven wheels off the deck.  I seem to recall that some automatic gearboxes don't like being towed, even in neutral.  Anyway, Mr Motorhome's "Kar Kaddy" (sic) had shed its right-side wheel and Mr Motorhome was disconsolately surveying the damage in a lay-by a couple of miles down the road.  This was probably the most exciting thing that happened all day, unless it was tickling a spaniel's ears at a rest area near Winslow.

Truth Or Consequences doesn't appear on many of the distance signs on I-25, because it won't fit, so you get useless mileages to pissant burgs like Las Cruces or El Paso instead.  Bah.  Anyway, I'm here, you're not, and the manager of the Desert View Inn is from Eastbourne.  Trufax.  And he's just popped round with a mug, a spoon and a small Zip-Loc™ bag of proper ground coffee for the morning.  This Unit hereby endorses this establishment.  I wonder if he still drinks Proper Tea as I have a surfeit of Yorkshire Tea in The Luggage this year.

There are not many pictures today, because Scorching Plains™ are not very photogenic compared with the rocks of divers National Parks.  Here is a Scorching Plain™ to prove my point:

Scorching Plain™, Mew Mexico, Wednesday

1. Just like the haunted fish tanks in every other caravanserai on every trip since 2010, when I actually managed to watch a season finale of "CSI: Miami", and then got confused when I watched it again at home six months later, because I thought they were recycling the plot device of Calleigh blowing up the lab and ["Shut up!" - Ed]
2. 8 years