Yeehaw everyone.
Yee. Haw.
So here we are.
Face to face.
A couple of silver spoons.
Hoping to find we’re….
Wait, what? Sorry. Sometimes I just get so lost in those lyrics.
Anyways, yeah another cross-country theme night. Get excited. And I know what you all are thinking. You guys are all like, “hey Wayne, I mean these are great and all but where are the Disney posts?” Well, first of all…
But that notwithstanding, you will be excited to hear that we will be doing a Disney night next as part of this journey. And it’s one I have never done on here. And it’s one that involves Larry the Cable Guy.
So you know its gotta be…
Good?
But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. For this post, I have a gem. For real. It’s the movie that won the dude from Ripley’s Believe It or Not! an Oscar.
Cross-country trip: Day 8
On Day 8, we will wake up at our hotel in Weatherford, OK and grab breakfast at the hotel. We have another long day of driving ahead of us as we make our way to New Mexico. Still on Route 66, we have plans again to try and hit up some super fun roadside attraction stuff type things.
We may check out the leaning water tower and the biggest cross in the Western Hemisphere in Groom, TX. When Nickie and I made this drive for our honeymoon, we actually just happened upon this cross and it was one of the only pictures I took on my flip phone on account of pictures on flip phones were still kind of a novelty. Plus, we should check it out since it looks like they are building an even bigger one now in Corpus Christi which means this will cease to be the biggest (in the Western Hemisphere) soon. Heh, in the Western Hemisphere of course.
Also, we will most definitely stop at Cadillac Ranch, another place Nickie and I stopped on our honeymoon and spray paint our names on the cars. We also plan to check out Glenrio, a ghost town on the border of NM and TX, and the Blue Hole in Santa Rosa. The Blue Hole is pretty cool – check out the link. Nickie and I also visited here on our honeymoon.
Lunch will be on the road, most likely burgers at Kix on 66 in Tucumcari – which is also a pretty big Route 66 town. Oh, and along the way we plan to drive down the Musical Road in Tijeras. Here, if you reduce your speed to 45mph, you will hear a rumble strip version of “America the Beautiful.” Check it out here.
We will most likely roll into Albuquerque at around 4PM, check out the town a little bit and check into our room at the Monterey Non-Smokers Motel, another Route 66 classic. And its non-smoking, so.
The theme night
For dinner, I made pulled chicken, macaroni and cheese and cornbread muffins. I dunno, seemed New Mexico-y.
You know, I just realized two things. We have not been doing really any activities as of late for our theme nights and I took NO pictures of any of us for this theme night. I am a TERRIBLE blogger. You should probably go read someone else.
Hangs head.
Eh, nah, come back. I will try my best to be better next time. Man, you were really gonna leave, weren’t you? And I thought we had something special.
The movie
So I haven’t seen City Slickers in a long, long time. I remember first seeing it in theaters with my Dad and loving it for sure. It’s funny, it has likable characters and as a teenager, the idea of driving cattle from New Mexico to Colorado seemed like some grand adventure I would like to take someday. This movie is literally gold from end to end. Unlike City Slickers II, which was actually a search for gold. Isn’t it ironic? Don’t you think?
And all of that remains true but now, watching it in my 40’s, it has a whole different feel to it. At the beginning of the movie, we find Mitch (Billy Crystal) turning 39. And he’s feeling a bit underwhelmed with where he’s at in life. When he says to Jeffrey Tambor, “have you ever had that feeling that this is the best I’m ever gonna do, this is the best I’m ever gonna feel… and it ain’t that great?” it resonates. Hard to admit it, but we all at one point go through this sort of thing. Especially at this time of life.
But the thing to realize, and the thing that Mitch comes to realize by the end of the movie, is that this feeling isn’t reflective of the external forces in your life. It’s not something borne of a life devoid of things that should make us unhappy. He seems to have a great life and from our perspective, all of his issues seem to spring from within. Pfft, isn’t that always the way.
All through our childhood, we fight getting older. When we are in our 20’s, we know this is “the best time” or “it’s all downhill from here.” During our 30’s, we start to build towards our “real” lives still full of uncertainty and hope. And then we get to this place in our life. When we are where we are for the most part. And, it can be easy to slip into malaise and restlessness. Because this is when we, as painters stepping back from their canvas, can look upon the life we have built. We now reside in the world we created rather than create the world in which we plan to reside.
I have come to realize “right now” is the best time. And I hope “right now” will always be the best time. Because now, I have a great life. A life that I have made with everyone around me. My wife. My kids. My family and friends. I guess I kind of disagree a little bit with the idea that you focus on “one thing” to make you happy in life, as Curly (Jack Palance) parlays to Mitch. I think at this time in life, focus on everything. Everything that you built and did in this life to get you here. Even if it isn’t perfect all the time, it’s yours. This life I have is pretty awesome. I look forward to more of it.
Now onto City Slickers II: The Legend of Curly’s Gold.
…
…
Pfft, I’m just kidding. That movie is terrible.
Did I just ruin a moment?
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