[This is a work of fiction. The story is an unadulterated and unabashed attempt to tickle male fantasies and perhaps some female fantasies as well. As such, the story may or may not totally conform to reality. With some occasional historical exceptions, all other places, events, and persons, are entirely fictitious and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.]
NOTE: This is the seventh part of a series. It is advisable to start with part one, Chicago, and read in chronological order.
After a long absence, Jen is finally back on the road again.
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The morning was still dark at four o'clock as I finally got out of Glenrio, Texas at 1,159 miles past Go. I was mulling over my pre-trip notes in my mind and contemplating the three-hundred and seventy-five some odd miles of Route 66 stretching through New Mexico. I was barely able to read the signs as I flashed by, even on high beams. I guess that was because the speedometer registered 130 mph at that point. Yeah, 130 mph and Miss Swifty wasn't even up to top speed yet.
I know this isn't only about my car, but I have to brag, just a little bit anyway. If you've been with me since Chicago, you already know about Miss Swifty. She was a 1963, Corvette, a split window coupe. And not just any coupe but the Z06 coupe. General Motors only made 199 of the them and the whole split window coupe line only that one year. And of those, only 50 (mine was one) were delivered with the big, N03 36.5 gallon fuel tank.
She had the L84 FI, 327 CI, 360 HP engine with the G81 positrac rear end. Other parts of the $1,818.45 Z06 option package, added on to the base price of $4,257.00 were: the M20 four speed tranny; special, heavy duty racing suspension; special big brakes unique to the Z06; and the P48 knock-off wheels. It has been reported that there are only two sets of these P48 wheels in existence today.
The option list went on, but you get the idea. This car really wasn't meant for the casual street driver, but intended for serious racers. That was a lot of money, a lot of serious money in 1963, the year I bought her new. But, in 1963, I already had a lot of money, so I could afford her and her insurance. I was also twenty three and loved fast cars. Yet today, I still get a wet spot in my panties when I think about that car! I'm wet now.
Anyhow, back to Route 66 and New Mexico. My ultimate destination was California, but I had to get to Albuquerque first. And before that, came Tucumcari, some fifty or so miles ahead. Funny, but I'd always dreamed of "cuming" in TuCUMcari.
According to my pre-trip research, New Mexico had only been part of the United states since the war with Mexico ended in 1848, and a state only since 1912. But the region has a long history, stretching way back in human history. Hispanic explorers first laid claim to the area in the 1500s. Prior to the Hispanics, the region had been occupied by Native American Indians for some 10,000 years.
I was hoping to catch some of the flavor of all that history on my journey through the state on the Mother Road. Speaking of which, the Mother Road originally took in the state capital at Santa Fe. But, already in 1937, this northerly detour was abandoned in favor of a more direct path straight west to Albuquerque.
The changing landscape also interested me. The eastern part of New Mexico is much like the Texas Panhandle--a dry, level, dusty, windswept plain. But in the western half beyond Albuquerque, the largest city in the state, lie the San Mateo Mountains. Those mountains contain the highest portion of the state where Route 66 crosses the Continental Divide at 7,275 feet.
A picture perfect landscape. And I just love another line from John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath about this:
"That's the end of Texas. New Mexico and the mountains. In the far distance, waved up against the sky, the mountains stood. And the wheels of the cars creaked around and the engines were hot, and steam spurted around the radiator caps."
The migrants of the 1930's must of had a God awful time of it compared to my cruising along at an average of one-hundred miles an hour in air conditioned comfort. I can't even imagine their travails! I wonder how Miss Swifty will handle those mountains. Meanwhile, back to my driving.
From my pre-trip research of this area along the Texas-New Mexico border and elsewhere in the west, I discovered that some of the old, unpaved sections of the road can still be followed by a car. Comparatively little of the original Route 66 was new construction or even paved at its opening in 1926.
Rather, large sections of the route were simply existing local roads which were spliced together to create a makeshift highway called Route 66. I was looking for one of those areas--an unpaved section of the original two lane 66 that was still supposed to run from Glenrio through Endee five miles further west and then on to the remains of another, almost vanished settlement of Bard.
Problem was, in the dark, I couldn't see much anyway. Poor planning on my part to leave Glenrio so damned early in the morning. Thus I was screaming down the hardroad at 130 miles an hour.
But I did recall that I was zooming through the tiny hamlets of Endee, 1,164 miles past Go, and Bard, 1,170 miles past Go. I remembered some of the local history from my notes. Endee's population had dropped to 110 by 1946. I knew the town to be all but deserted by the time I went through.
Bard had a similar history. At one time the town had a population of 195, but it had also been all but abandoned--due to location changes of Route 66.
Early on, the area was cowboy country. That meant heavy drinking and shootouts. These activities were once so common place and the bodies so numerous that the authorities at Bard would have a ditch dug every Saturday, ready to receive the bodies of unlucky shootists the next morning.--or so the rumor goes.
A bit further down the road lay another tiny little hamlet, San Jon (pronounced San Hon) at 1,176 miles past Go. Founded only in 1902, this little way-stop was once a busy place of three-hundred population for early day Route 66 travelers with several gas stations, garages, motor courts, and restaurants. In those vintage days, San Jon was the largest town of those eastern plains and was the hub of cowboy night life on Saturday nights.
My inability to see much in the dark hours didn't matter much. These little communities at this time were but tiny bumps in the road with nothing to see anyway. Mostly, just memories of the past remained.
My attention was jerked back to my driving when my headlights suddenly picked out a hitch hiker on the shoulder up ahead. As I flashed by at over a hundred miles an hour, all I saw was that he was a tall, dark, thin male.
Without really thinking about it, or maybe subliminally thinking about TuCUMcari, I braked, locking Swifty up for a couple of seconds or more. Those special big brakes brought her to a very quick stop. I was the only car in sight as I did fast Uee and burned rubber back to the hitcher, where I did another fast Uee and pulled up beside him with another screech of tires. His eyes were bugged out and his mouth was wide open in astonishment.
"Hey," I yelled through the lowering window, "I'm Jen. Where you headed?"
Back to UCLA in California, and my name's Art."
"Well, Art, get your good looking ass in here and let's get going!"
By the way, I strongly urge anyone, especially women alone, NOT to pick up strangers on the highway this day and age! Back in 1963, it wasn't quite so risky, but I was still foolish at that dark hour.
Be that as it may, Art moved his ass and jumped in. I burned rubber at each shift, all the way through fourth gear as we roared off in a fog of exhaust fumes and tire smoke. I went through tires pretty fast in those days. Gas was a hell of a lot cheaper back then as well!
As I said, I was thinking horny thoughts anyway before I picked up Art, and looking him over only increased the horniness. He looked to be about five or six years older than I, had dark hair cut in a flat top, and had the dark eyed, swarthy look to go with the hair. Art was so tall that he was a close fit in the car. He was broad shouldered and broad chested and well muscled, at least as much as I could tell. For all his muscles, he had the lean look and he said playing soccer probably helped keep him that way.