One Long Shortcut

  Chapter 118: Toby Keith, I Love It (Apparently) Today was exciting in a very specific adult way: lunch plans with friends. We were meeting Jachin and Ben.  I had been dying to meet Ben, and Jachin had somehow never met Nelson in person, despite knowing everything about him via stories, photos, and probably complaints (they met virtually once). They made reservations at a Bricktown restaurant called “Toby Keith, I Love This Bar & Grill.” This name caused an unreasonable amount of confusion between Nelson and me. Nelson spotted the place and went, “Toby Keith!” And I, thinking I was being helpful and respectful, kept saying, “Yes, Toby Keith, I Love This Bar & Grill .” Then Nelson asked me for dish recommendations. I said, “How would I know? I’ve never been here.” He pressed on: “Did you visit another location?” “No?? What’s wrong with you??” “But you said you love it.” “I did NOT!” “Yes you did.  Every time I said Toby Keith, you said you love it!” ...

Chapter 114: Petroglyphs, Deadlines, and Hypothermia by the Door For the first time in what felt like weeks, we slept in. After dawn patrols at Navajo Dam and a long drive into Albuquerque, this lazy morning felt deeply deserved. Naturally, this peace lasted about twelve minutes before Nelson’s phone started ringing. One work call turned into another, and suddenly he was glued to his laptop well into the afternoon. I sat nearby, silently escalating my looks from mild disappointment to full murder eyes . Funny how none of this happened during the three days we froze at the San Juan River, where he didn’t catch a single fish. By almost 4pm, we finally escaped and drove to Rinconada Canyon in Petroglyph National Monument. The moment we parked, I saw the sign: “Closes at 5pm.” Immediate panic. The trail is 2.2 miles long and supposedly has up to 300 petroglyphs. My brain went into efficiency mode: How fast can I walk? How many rocks can I scan per minute? What if I miss the best one? ...

  Chapter 112: Christmas, Closed Dunes, and Potato Chips with Altitude Issues Christmas Day was deliberately low-key, which in van terms means multitasking immediately after waking up. While Nelson handled breakfast, I started making beef noodle soup at the same time...  future dinner insurance for a long driving day, destined for the thermal cooker like a slow, dependable friend. Very festive. Very practical. Our big plan was to arrive at White Sands National Park mid-afternoon, linger dramatically on the white dunes, and watch the sunset turn everything pink and magical. Instead, we arrived to discover the park was closed for Christmas Day . Closed. Entirely. No peeking. No loopholes. Just fences, signs, and the knowledge that the whole place is wrapped inside a missile range, which feels extremely on-brand for New Mexico. I was disappointed. I was also mildly annoyed at Nelson, who had very convincingly altered the itinerary so White Sands landed on Christmas Day in th...

  Chapter 109: Roswell, We Believe (and Also Laundry) Crossing into New Mexico felt momentous, even if our first official stop was the Roswell welcome sign sitting awkwardly by a lonely stretch of highway, heavily graffitied and wildly underwhelming. Still, the sky was that blinding Georgia O’Keeffe blue, and just like that, New Mexico felt real. We dove straight into downtown to visit the International UFO Museum and Research Center , which turned out to be far more charming than expected. It’s small, dated, privately run, and completely committed to the 1947 Roswell incident. Flying saucers, government retractions, binders upon binders of UFO sightings—honestly, it felt like the birthplace of America’s conspiracy theory hobby. I found myself surprisingly reflective. Younger me loved a neat, black-and-white worldview and rolled my eyes hard at conspiracy theorists. Older me… well, older me has read enough history (and enough New York Times investigative pieces) to know gover...