Rain can brighten day

Last week, Elizabeth Morris asked if I would like to do something special on Sunday. Well, of course, I thought of a trip to lma, and she seemed to be willing to ride along with Prissy and me. Little did we know what kind of day we would be spending out there or how little time we would walking.

We decided to take a round-about way to reach those canyons by going to McAlister, House, and Hassell. I hadn't taken that trip in several years and was eager to see what had changed on those plains. As usual, so many memories flooded the mind that I was a bit overcome with emotion as I recalled some of the drives along those roads during my childhood.

When we have spent most of our lives in a particular area, we tend to recall experiences as we travel each mile on such a trip. Unfortunately, I tend to do all too much talking when other people are riding along with me; thus, Elizabeth was trapped into listening to many more stories than she really cared to hear. As we drove toward McAlister, I was recalling the times that Mother would decide we needed to go to Tucumcari and would take me with her after letting the other kids out of the car at the House school. Those were wonderful trips because Mother certainly had a captive listener and would tell me many stories about her childhood and would talk about serious topics I might face while growing up.

As we drove through House, I was still much in the past and spewed forth many of my thoughts while Elizabeth and Prissy just looked at each other as if wondering when we might have some silence. As always, I was seeing the village of the past and was able to spot many places I remembered from that time.

We finally stopped at the Ima school and walked around for a few minutes while I continued talking about the past. Actually, that was the only outing we had for the rest of the day because a light rain began to fall just as we were leaving the area. When we turned north toward lma, we could see dark clouds approaching and were aware of the constant motion of the windshield wipers.

By the time we stopped at Ima, we could see that we weren't going to be doing much driving off the pavement. In fact, the heavens opened up about that time. We decided to eat lunch there before making further decisions about what to do next. We could barely see the canyons but surely could see the rain beginning to make puddles all around us. We then drove into the Alamogordo Valley as the rain continued to fall more heavily. We couldn't see much farther than a couple of blocks ahead and just enjoyed splashing along.

That hard rain kept falling until after we came down the Ragland Hill and began to come closer to Tucumcari. After seeing all that water standing in the fields and pastures, we were a bit disappointed to see less standing around here. We did get to see a little torrent dashing down the Plaza Larga, and that was a most pleasant sight.

Some people might have been disappointed to spend such a day just driving in the rain and being unable to do much walking, but we were more than delighted to have seen all that wonderful rain and to know that the ground would be damp in some places for several days. What a great way to spend a Sunday!

Lynn Moncus is a Tucumcari resident and can be contacted through the Quay County Sun by calling 461-1952.