I’ve been traveling for almost 4 weeks in my RV, Abeona, through West Texas, Southern New Mexico and Arizona during the Spring of 2024.  There are some oddities that you just don’t see in Durham, NC, where my home is. I am familiar with some of these things as I lived in Albuquerque in the early 90’s but I have been genuinely surprised by some of these phenomena and roadside attractions.

West Texas

Here are some of the oddities I found on the byways of the Southwest:

Hitchhiker warnings.  I can remember my brother Rick and me driving through Arizona back in the 90’s and there were several signs about not picking up hitchhikers because we were near a prison facility.  First of all, are there really that many prison breaks that meant they needed signs for this? Secondly, wouldn’t it be pretty obvious that they were escaped prisoners?  I can remember at the time of my road trip with my brother that we were low on gas.  We were worried that we would run out and, due to the signs, we wouldn’t get help.  This was pre-cell phone. These signs are still there in New Mexico and Arizona and they are miles from the nearest prison. 

Tumbleweeds.  I always thought tumbleweeds were a creation for Looney Tunes when I grew up in the suburbs of Northern Delaware.  But tumbleweeds are for real and are quite jolting when driving down an Interstate at 70 miles an hour. They move fast and steam roll across the road out of nowhere.  

Prada Store.  There is an art installation along Route 90 near Marfa TX that looks like a small Prada Store complete with handbags and some shoes. I had been driving for about 2 hours as I was leaving Big Bend National Park and suddenly see this small store on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere.  I mean nowhere.  I’m thinking, who in the world would travel 3 hours to shop for Prada shoes? I didn’t know until later that it’s an art installation.  Crazy.

Giant Movie Roadside Tribute. Not far from the Prada Store in Marfa on Route 90 is a plywood tribute to the 1956 movie starring James Dean and Elizabeth Taylor.  There is a reproduction of the house James Dean, Elizabeth Taylor and Rock Hudson behind the wheel of a big yellow car. I can’t tell you how badly I wanted to stop and take pictures but, in an RV, it would have been too hard to turn around. 

Paisano Pete.  This is on a corner in Fort Stockton, TX.  It’s the second largest roadrunner in the world and stands 11 feet tall and has been there since the 1980’s.  At the time it was the largest roadrunner in the world until Las Cruces put in a larger roadrunner statute in 1993.  

Dust Storms.  If you have driven on Interstate 10 in southern New Mexico and Arizona, you are familiar with large yellow signs warning of “Dust Storms for the next 40 miles”.  They even have instructions on what to do (like don’t stay on the main roadway).  There was at least 200 miles of warnings of possible dust storms and I was there on a very windy day but luckily there were no storms as I was passing through.  The main upshot is that it’s windy and dusty and when they combine, it’s dangerous.

Ruidoso Bed Races.  There is an annual bed race in Ruidoso, NM.  This is a very small town in the hills of New Mexico between Alamogordo and Roswell.  I remember bed races when I was in college so seeing this annual event advertised in this tiny town in New Mexico brought back memories.

Deming Duck Races.  I immediately thought that this would be little yellow ducks which I have seen at charity events.  But no, in Deming, New Mexico, these are live ducks who race through the water to the finish line. In addition, there is a Tournament of Ducks Parade and a Duck Royalty pageant.  Random but looks like fun.

Some of these oddities are upward of hundreds of miles apart on the long, dusty roads of the southwest. It’s lonesome, dry and miles of long vacant high desert and hills.  It felt like an Easter Egg Hunt when I ran across some of these interesting oddities hundreds of miles outside of a large metropolitan city.