Remember the days before cell phones? On road trips, we stopped at gas stations for directions, studied maps, checked our AAA books for motels and lunch spots, and looked for quirky kid-friendly attractions, like the National Museum of Roller Skating in Lincoln, Nebraska.

Thirty years later, Kent and I were returning to New Mexico from a trip to Colorado, Wyoming, and Montana, where we visited friends and relatives. Three more overnights remained; one in Laramie and two with Kent’s childhood friends in Colorado. We’d left Sheridan, Wyoming (Kent’s hometown), and were nearing Casper when we stopped at a rest area.

“Let’s give the Reeds a call,” I suggested. “We need directions to their place. Where’s your phone?” It wasn’t in his shirt or pants pocket. A search of the car yielded nothing.

“You didn’t leave it at Dick’s, did you? How could you possibly leave your phone behind?”

I checked my phone and found a text message from Dick. He had the phone. I called him. No, we didn’t want to drive back to get it. He promised to mail it to us. Luckily, I  found two numbers for the Reeds on my phone and a scrap of paper with their address.  

I texted them, “Kent left his phone in Sheridan. So call and text to my phone. Send directions to your place.” They called while we were negotiating a detour around Casper.  I juggled the conversation while trying to give Kent guidance.

“Oops! You missed a turn!” The phone call ended, and we got back on track.

Three days after missing our turn and spending two pleasant days with the Reeds, we stopped to celebrate our return to New Mexico by enjoying a simple lunch at the family-owned Mesa Vista Café in Ojo Caliente. We still had a couple of hours to drive, but crossing the line into New Mexico was always a homecoming. I checked my phone for messages and opened one of the many enticing notices from Overseas Adventure Travel. We fantasized about possible future exotic adventures. But now, we were looking forward to being home.

 “I can drive now,” I said when we finished our lunch. “I know the way, and you don’t have to use my phone for directions.” I hopped into the driver’s seat and we continued along the familiar route past Hernandez, made famous by Ansel Adams, through Española to Santa Fe, and onto I-25, with its straight shot into Albuquerque. We congratulated ourselves on beating the rush hour traffic.

 We were relieved to have finished the long day’s drive and happy to be home at last. I reached for my phone to let Mike and Susan, our friends and tenants, know that we had returned. But where was it?  The phone was not in any pockets, under the car seats, or in my purse.

“Could I have left my phone? No! Not me!” I looked at Kent, the possibility of the impossible inevitably dawning on me.

“How could you possibly forget your phone?” he said, with a schadenfreude smile. I opened my laptop. “Find my phone” revealed its location at the Mesa Vista Cafe in Ojo Caliente. We’d have to drive back there tomorrow. I groaned, then searched for the restaurant online and sent an email and text. There was no reply, of course. I texted Susan, who came at once. She called the restaurant, although we knew it would be closed for the day. But, to my relief, someone answered.

“Are you calling about the phone?” they asked.

“Tell them we’ll come and get it tomorrow,” I told Susan

Alas, our travels weren’t over yet. I wasn’t looking forward to another trip to northern New Mexico this soon. We were still visiting with Susan, when her phone rang again. A person connected with the restaurant the Mesa Vista cafe would be heading to Santa Fe for some grocery shopping. Could we meet her in 2 hours at a gas station on Airport Road near the Relief Route? Oh, yes! Her name was Stacy, and we wrote down her number. Susan insisted we take her phone with us, or we’d have no way to get in touch.

Weary as we were, we got back in the car.

Traffic was backed up leaving Albuquerque. We didn’t want Stacy to have to wait for us. Could we get there on time? I took a shortcut—longer in distance, but we bypassed the bottleneck and arrived at what we hoped was the correct gas station ahead of schedule. Susan had given us her phone in case we’d needed to connect with Stacy.

The convenience store attached to the station was doing a brisk business that Friday evening, with construction workers picking up huge packs of beer and topping off the gas tanks of their big trucks. This was not the tourist’s Santa Fe. The men were unexpectedly friendly and polite as they dashed around us on their way in and out of the store. We tried not to block the door. We felt out of place and must have looked lost.

“Are you having car trouble? Do you need help?” one fellow asked. We probably didn’t fit the profile of someone waiting for a drug drop, so what were we doing there?  Susan’s phone dinged with a text from Stacy. “Be there in ten minutes!” We had no idea what she looked like, but she’d be driving a black RAV Four.

We never saw the RAV Four, but here came a young woman – our angel! — holding my phone. She was the niece of our lunchtime server. She refused the forty dollars I offered her. I gave her a hug and profuse thanks.

“Just tell your friends to stop at the cafe,” she said.

I felt as happy as a child who’s found her lost teddy bear. I called  Susan to tell her the good news – but the phone in my hand rang.  I had her phone!  By the time we headed south, traversing I-25 between Albuquerque and Santa Fe for the third time that day, traffic had lessened. We arrived home again, grateful for the help of the Ojo Caliente family, Susan, and the construction workers. They boosted my faith in humanity.

If you’re ever passing through Ojo Caliente, do stop at the charming Mesa Vista Café.  If you leave your phone or any other belongings there by mistake, they will be in good hands.

Kent received his phone a few days later. He put a check in the mail to Dick, who was adamant that he didn’t want it.  We reflected on how these phones, which are so much more than just telephones, and that didn’t even exist thirty years ago, have become essential in our daily lives.

Kent reads from a chapter of the book on the Wyoming Prairies. Click here for the YouTube Video

In case you missed it, here is a link to Kent’s interviews with Southwest Writers

And here is a bit more from the October newsletter:

News about the book (and other books)

Money for Mangos’ sailing blog has a nice short list of great sailing adventure books. When I contacted them about listing We Ran Away to Sea, I got a reply saying they had the book, and were putting it on their “to read” list and hoping to read it soon! Check this list out here:

Money for Mangos: Best Sailing Adventure Books

We’ve been reading some other sailing books. I just discovered Child of the Sea, written by Doina Cornell, the daughter of renowned sailor and author Jimmy Cornell. She circumnavigated the globe with her parents and younger brother in the 1970s, when she was between the ages of 7 and 14. I’m finding it delightful, gaining insights that will help  me write my children’s books. It is available on Amazon, but I also found it on one of my favorite websites, the Internet Archive.

Another sailing memoir that caught my attention is And Then We Hit a Rock by Greg Buenzli. This family of five, a dog, and a cat sailed along the east coast of the U.S. and the Bahamas in a deluxe catamaran for a year.  The breezy story is told with wit and humor. Predictably, the family encounters all the troubles common to inexperienced sailors, as well as the mechanical problems of boats. In that way, the book is similar to We Ran Away to Sea,  but these folks are not operating on a tight budget.  They spend a fortune without having to sell their home and give up their jobs to fulfill the author’s dream.

My favorite line from the book description: Remember: If everything had gone exactly as planned….it wouldn’t have been much of an adventure.

I enjoyed the book, and you might too, but what shocked me was the fact that this book has over 4,000 reviews on Amazon and almost 3,000 on Goodreads. Kent’s book has just reached 80. Granted, quite a few of these reviews say nothing more than “Great book!” and that kind of thing, but still…

I wrote to the author, asking how he managed to do this, but did not receive a reply, so the success of this book remains a mystery to me. It ranks #1 in Amazon’s category of sailing narratives (Kent’s book was a respectable #6 last week), #2 in Travelogues & Travel Essays, and #6 in Traveler & Explorer Biographies.

So, come on, fans! We need to do better.  We are still in the hole paying for Amazon ads.

That’s all for right now!