Author: Mick Jeffries

Well, a little light on the blogging, due to the myriad of San Diego activities! Yep, we’re here! A lot’s been going on…

Take a look, gentle reader at some of the exploits of the Way Out West Gang, on the road to San Diego!

Click here for pictures!

Ah, Motel 6…I didn’t realize I’d get to become such a regular, but this trip has been The Motel 6 Trip. The reasons are two-fold:

1. Pets are welcome. Hello Charlie Brown and Olivia!
2. The rates, they cheap

Typically, there’s no wireless, but there’s been great luck finding it a door or two down at a neighboring hotel. Finally, there’s no shortage of characters lurking around in Motel 6 land; Overheard being sung by an invisible, anonymous man in the breezway, at 6am, at Motel 6 in Flagstaff: “There’s one thing I know…I like beer.”

Through some odd weird confluence alignment-of-the-stars up above, tarasita done got her ass out here to NM! Now it’s a celebration! righton!©

Today, i unhitched the Woomobile from the u-haul and, with mapquest screens from my laptop, motored into the quickly setting sun, searching for some lost bit of my childhood. Across I-25, down state road 16, right on SR44, I found it: There was the dustblown, sunbleached sign: Rancho Alegre. Rancho Alegre, longtime home of my regionally famous cousin, J.W. Eaves and his family. I was overcome by a delight to return here, more than 20 years after my last visit.

Driving along the paved road (wasn’t it dirt before?), I passed the house. I’m sure this was the house, right? A sprawling adobe manse, so foreign to these southern eyes, and so familiar to these childhood eyes. It sits low on a rise or desert red and brown, dozens of yards behind the running fence and the road. It looked unoccupied. That was the house. And down the road farther, on the left—there it was. The movie ranch. I was tingling at the sight of those fake buildings, that contrived western street, so well-situated out here among the dust and lizards, yet so absolutely anachronistic. this is a western town. No, this is not a western town. this is a movie set, a tribute to countless western towns on TV and in the movies for decades.

There seemed to be an “office” now, and fencing and a gate. Several signs claiming “set is closed” looked neglected as did a sunbleached sign warning of a guard dog. Since I could easily step through the ornamental gate, I decided that probably there wasn’t a roaming attack dog.

Decades ago, I come here in a dune buggy, reeling in my good fortune. A dune buggy. JW’s dune buggy, that he told me I could drive around. I was maybe 13 years old, and i had the keys to a dune buggy and permission to wander far and wide around a kingdom of scrubbrush and fake wild west buildings.

I can see two cars, but don’t see any people. Is this what it’s like “out west?” …You just wander around because everything is great big and nobody’s really around anyway? I chew on that, as I amble as innocently as possible around the side of a building. Are there voices?Or is that the sound of movies by-gone taking a break between shots? No it’s voices, I’m sure. As I come around the corner, I see a couple kicked back on a driftwood porch, drinking in the sunset. This has potential to be tense, so I send out a “hello there!” not too loud, but not too soft, either. They’re actually so relaxed that they don’t notice me, so I speak up a little: “HI THERE. Um, I know I’m trespassing, but…”—Such a story, how do I tell it?— Trying to get right to the point, I summarize: “I am a distant relative of JW and Ermalee’s, and I used to come play here when I was a little kid. I’ve come all the way from Kentucky and couldn’t be this close and not try to stop by.” The guy on the porch seems to scoff and says: “Oh, we’ve never heard that story before!” I think he’s giving me shit, but in fact, he means it. This leads to a sprawling conversation and recollection about JW and Ermalee, the Movie ranch, the house and more. Suddenly these things I’ve remembered, these near myths are made real, restored like a faded movie print. This guy, Thomas, knows everything I’m talking about. He knew the Eaves, he knows Mel, the grandson who inherited the ranch, he knows Trish, the daughter who was Miss Rodeo America in 1969 and he knows about the room that was full of nothing but her trophies. He even mentions The Cheyenne Social Club, a western that I only think of in terms of the Movie Ranch and may or may not have ever seen. Thomas is the first person I’ve ever talked to who knew these things other than my mom or my brother. It’s a relief, a joy, kind of a dream, and it almost chokes me with emotion.

I remember JW took us on a tour of the property, a pickup truck on a rutted out road. He drove us down into a box canyon, telling us about how the just-released The Lone Ranger did some filming here. I want to see it immediately. In the bottom of the canyon, the walls rise up and JW hands me the keys. “Why don’t you drive us out of here, Mickey?” he suggests with a sideways grin. The truck is a manual “column shifter” and they road out is about a 20 degree incline.

Thomas is as nice as he can be. He’s a burly, shaggy headed cross between a cowboy and an actor. He’s an actor who plays cowboys, but also seems to actually be a cowboy. He is the caretaker on the ranch, feeding the several horses, and doing I-don’t-know-what. But he says he’s quite busy and isn’t especially tolerant of uninvited visitors, it seems. Luckily, I seem to be an exception. “A few weeks ago, on a Sunday morning at 8am, I hear a knock on my door…” he says, with obvious irritation. “I get up, open the door, and there’s this man and this lady, and he grins and says ‘We came ALL THE WAY DOWN from Santa Fe! I thought I’d show my wife the ranch!’” Thomas pauses, reliving his disbelief. “‘All the way down from Santa Fe,’ huh?” he snorts. “Santa Fe is 25 minutes away, if you drive slow!”

The sun goes down, and we talk and talk some more. I’m certainly not being hurried off, and in fact eventually excuse myself, after getting clearance from Thomas to come buy tomnorrow “for the morning light” to take some pictures. I drive off with the most remarkable warm feeling, as if I’ve been granted an audience with a beloved, but long-dead relative. Which I have.

Click here for some pictures of JW Eaves’ Movie Ranch.

Finally. Santa Fe.

but, you know, it’s not really like that.

We have had the most leisurely drive out west, I think.

We’ve driven plenty, no doubt; weathered zillions of delays; got started late; drove until later. All of it, no prob. But I think there was round after round of public and private woot! when we crossed over into New Mexico. At that point, the landscape changed, the tenor changed… we were somewhere else. Finally, irrefutably. And that is the goal of a trip for me: to be somewhere else.

Today, from the second we got into NM, the weather started fuckin’ with us, I will say that. The morning in Amarillo brought glorious light and a breeze; by the time we pulled over to see The Cadillac Ranch, the mercury was climbing but the breeze (wind, even?) was hanging in there. Later, in NM, right across the border in Tucum for an internet break (ah, the new world), the mercury wasn’t climbing, it was soaring. As we hunkered down for the final 3-4 hours to Santa Fe, things got a little dicey, since the animal contingent (have I mentioned Charlie Brown and Olivia?) were seeming a little withered and the Woo machine (the Crown Vic) was inching towards too-hot-under-the-hood. So we abandoned AC, swapped the pets into the more—ahem—moderne Tif and Troy-mobile and rolled down the windows. This was a welcome broiling, in my opinion—caravanning up and up, among the mesas, under big skies with a loud sun. And then just when this seemed like the new norm, storm clouds started boiling on the horizon. and we eventually sailed into a rattling bout of lightning and and miniature rainstorm thrashing. Jules said: “Iit was like the raindrops were being thrown down at us.” Then, cool… then hwy 285 rolled out for us and we drove the final hour into Santa Fe under total glory: cloud littered skies, rainbows, and air, delicious air in the mid-70s.

that was some kind of welcome…

the fabulous, the mega, the super-dee-duper Tessie T is joining us! Flyin’ in, she is!

Okay, gotta git. We gotta tear ass for Santa Fe.

Okay, I’ve become once again enchanted by the EAVES MOVIE RANCH. As I may or may not have made clear, I played here as a child, and was so in love with the place. More on this to come.

This morn, from our remote outpost at Holiday Inn, Tucumcari, NM. The fine folks here opened their internet to us, and for that we are grateful.

Whilst blogging, I’ve discovered that since I last investigated, they got them one of them fancy fancy websites. Yee-haw!

I’m really curious about how this is working, since my 2nd cousin (once removed) JW, and his wife Ermalee passed into the Great Beyond a number of years ago. Who’s runnin’ the show??

I hope I get to visit somehow. but I wonder about the real influence of approaching Rancho Alegre and buzzing the buzzer and saying “I’m JW’s 2nd Cousin (once removed)! Can I come in?”

but you never know.. I’m gonna at least try.

Quick breakfast tip: If in Amarillo, look for Stockman’s Home Cookin’, off of I-40. Be sure and get a side of their home-made hot sauce for your eggs and—well—just put it on everything.

A warning though: The pancakes and waffles have officially gotten the gasface from Tif and Woo.

I’m glad you asked. You know I never tire of the music thang—

Zap Mama, Brazilian Girls, Bebel Gilberto, Carl Henry Brueggen, Bossacucanova, some disco, Mosquitos, stories from “I thought My Father was God—The Best of NPR’s National Story Project,” and a Kurt Vonnegut collection.

Today, I predict Beck, Squeeze and Herb Alpert.

Note: the musical views represented herein do not necessarily represent those of the Toyota Landcruiser that is frequently seen in our company.