When the Jetsons take family road trips, they always stay at the Space Age Lodge.
I’m not sure about daughter Judy (oh baby!) but George’s boy Elroy wouldn’t have it any other way.
A remnant of New Frontier America some 70 miles southwest of Phoenix, the Space Lodge was built in 1963. It seems like such a long time ago that we said “wow” — genuine and without guile: “Look Mom, a spaceship motel!” — about things that are marvelous instead of tragic.
I found Gila Bend, named for a turn in the Gila River, by taking the Interstate 8 bypass around Phoenix. The alternative route is a long, scenic stretch of blessedly undeveloped desert marked with tan and brown and maroon rock. It’s a spectacular show at sunrise and super at sunset.
After my visits to the Marfa Mystery Lights and the philosopher Ran Horn of Van Horn in West Texas, I stopped in Silver City, N.M., to visit my friend Eric Mithen — he got married last year, shaking off Crabtown like an ex-lover who stalks your dreams — and told me a guy from Pimlico Junior High School sells gelato in the old silver mining town 150 miles west of El Paso, Texas.
“You don’t just drift into Silver City– you’ve got to plan to come here, even if it’s just for a day,” said Mitchell Hellman, owner of Alotta Gelato in downtown Silver City.
“There’s a lot of talk that we might become the next Taos or Santa Fe,” said Hellman, “but I’ll bet you dollars to doughnuts it will never be the kind of tourist destination of those towns. We can’t even get folks to [volunteer] at the visitors center on Sunday.”
And maybe that’s a good thing. You make a place too easy to find, and it becomes just another highway stop for coffee and a clean restroom.
I stumbled happily upon Van Horn; found fabulous tomato and mozzarella pies in a converted gas station — the Pizza Foundation — in Marfa; would not have tasted the stinkiest cheese in the world had I not had a friend in Silver City who took me to a fromage fete there; and could not resist a motel shaped like the Space Family Robinson’s garage in Gila Bend.
Go soon, wanderers.
Gas will be $5 a gallon before you know it.
