Day 27: Truth Or Consequences

I couldn’t resist mak­ing a cou­ple more Roadfood-recommended stops in Tucson before head­ing toward Albuquerque. First was Le Cave’s bak­ery, which has been oper­at­ing since 1935. Strictly a pick-up-and-go kind of place, I bought a pump­kin empanada and a cin­na­mon twist for a drive-time snack. Next on my list was Gus Balon’s, a breakfast-and-lunch-only diner famous for their sweet rolls.

I took a seat at the end of the long L-shaped counter and ordered two eggs over-easy and a sweet roll. When my food arrived, I was unpre­pared for the sheer size of the roll that was much larger than the plate it came on. I only thought to take this photo after I’d devoured about a quar­ter of it:

The huge sweet roll at Gus Balon’s

I made a valiant effort to fin­ish it, but halfway through, I was stuffed, so I wrapped the remain­der and paid my $4.35 check and pointed the car toward Las Cruces, where I’d turn north toward Albuquerque.

Las Cruces seemed like a cool place, but I only stopped long enough to fill my gas tank, as I wanted to stop in Hatch, New Mexico, for green chiles and din­ner, a mis­sion that was only half-successful. Hatch is a tiny, tiny place, but it’s the green chile cap­i­tal of the world. The two restau­rants I wanted to try were both closed, so I set­tled for stop­ping at one of the half-dozen stands along the high­way and picked up 9 huge green chiles for the princely sum of one dollar.

Truth Or Consequences was the next major stop on the route to Albuquerque, and is also the fic­tional home of pro­fes­sional wrestler Cactus Jack, a.k.a. Mick Foley. I intended to stop at La Cocina, but the only thing at the address marked on the GPS was the shell of a burned-down build­ing, so I set­tled for Taco Bell, a deci­sion I’d later regret, for many rea­sons, the first being the vio­la­tion of my alpha trip rule. I was dou­bly dis­mayed to dis­cover that La Cocina was not a half-mile past Taco Bell, but since it was get­ting late and I still had a healthy drive to get to Albuquerque, I pressed on.

I’d intended to meet up with another music-list friend, Dana, with whom I’d cor­re­sponded but never met, for din­ner, but I didn’t real­ize that Tucson-to-Albuquerque is more than eight hours, not the six or so I’d thought. We made plans to meet for cof­fee in the morn­ing, so I unpacked the car and hit the sack after watch­ing a cou­ple episodes of Weeds I had on my lap­top, unable to watch Live Free Or Die Hard on HBO for the fourth time on the trip.