David Vidal's Blog – February 2010 Archive (2)

I was born in Gallup, New Mexico. A coal mining town. A railroad town. The two go hand in hand.



Historically, Gallup was a community of hard working, hard drinking immigrants who lived right next to the huge Navajo Reservation. It was built because of the huge coal reserves there, and named for the paymaster, whose last name was Gallup. People would say "I'm going to Gallup" when it was time to get paid. The name stuck. Bobby Troupe mentioned the town in his famous song, "Route 66". I… Continue

I recently returned to California from a month long jaunt through Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska and Colorado. And then back through New Mexico and Arizona. A big loop that took me out of the Los Angeles area on Interstate 10 and returned me via Interstate 40. All this in an '83 Toyota van (the very first year Toyota made vans for the American market) with 188,000 plus miles on the odometer. Of course, the odometer stopped working years ago.



When we speak of… Continue