Rain on roads

Traveling with a friend through Northern Arizona and Western New Mexico in monsoon season is exhilarating, thrilling, refreshing restoring. We were most of the time in high country, the air thin and pure, ethereal, cool. Mountainair, aptly named was originally inhabited by the Tiwa and Tompiro Indians. In the 17 hundreds the Spanish missions started to be build here. The city itself was founded in 1902 by bean farmers happy that the railroad was coming soon. They had a vision of grandeur, build stone houses, laid out wide streets. A lot of Mexicans worked in the bean fields, so all there is are two Mexican cantinas about 13 miles apart where you still can have breakfast, lunch and dinner. Yet the rain went away during the drought in the 1940's. Then followed the ranchers with big herds of longhorns and black cattle. The high valleys provide enough grass, it seems. You could witness live auctions of cattle and the cowboy days festivities if you came at the right time. The air has a special cleanliness about it that makes dreams possible and waking up from them a fresh start. The rain was exorbitant, over the top, the lightning fierce yet splendid. It awakes every deadened heart. Driving over the long, lonely roads, you know: This is life. Here you are in the purity of what life is supposed to be.