How I survived Hobbs without Calvin

This last week I traveled to Hobbs, NM for work. I was a little disturbed to find out before I left that the town had no coffee shops. I'm not talking about just chains. I mean no coffee shops at all! Now I've become fairly dependant on the coffee shop vibe to help me put down my daily words so I was worried about being able to get my word count in. Plus, I wake up at 4:30 every morning now. The idea of waking up that early and trying to write in my room at the Lea County Inn did not appeal.

When I arrived at my hotel in Hobbs I saw that it had been completely filled by me and a Mennonite group. All I saw throughout the hotel were long chin-strap beards on the guys and frumpy ladies with little hats covering their hair buns. They had completely taken over the breakfast room where I would normally use as a fall back to do some evening writing so I knew right off that was out. When I asked the guy at the desk if there was a Starbucks, Caribou, Dunn Brothers, Seattle's Best or any other coffee house in town he laughed and said the best coffee in town was McDonalds. That did not bode well for me.

Luckily there was one other chain in town that was 24 hours. IHOP. So every morning I cruised over to IHOP and drank a pot of their tolorable coffee and wrote. A side note about Hobbs, NM. This is a very blue collar town filled with oil men, farmers, and construction workers. Most of the inhabitants of the town worked in one of these fields all of which are booming. Retail and restaurants are hard up to find workers. So IHOP was only opened during the hours of 5 to 11 because of this shortage. The same to be said of WalMart. Every morning I was at IHOP I watched the one waitress run from table to table. I felt bad for the lady, but I was easy with my oatmeal and pot of coffee; I didn't take up much of her time.

In the evenings I wrote at a wine bar called the Pacific Rim and they, at least, served Starbucks coffee so that was good. I was able to write well every morning and every evening, but the vibe was just not there. On Wednesday morning, my last day in Hobbs the waitress must have been sick because IHOP didn't open at all. I spent an hour trying to find anywhere to go, but nothing was open. I ended up eating at McDonalds and choking on what had to be, the worst cup of coffee ever.

That afternoon I drove back to Lubbock, TX where I was flying out the next morning. On the way there I drove past this house, which, rumor has it is owned by a Mennonite. It's all brick, huge and looks to worth more than all the other houses in the area. It's neighbor is a rusted brown moble home.

Lubbock, two hours away and home of Texas Tech, has two Starbucks. As soon as I arrived I drove strait to one of them and promptly drank a cup of their finest brew and wrote up a storm. After that I had some supper at a Jason's Deli, which make a fantastic Rueben by the way, and found my way to the other Starbucks in Lubbock which happened to be on the Texas Tech campus. I was surrounded by college people who were all very friendly and I was in heaven.

All in all I was able to write around 10,000 words while on my adventure in the southwest. Not too shabby. Before I left I submitted two stories. One of which I sent to Weird Tales. I have sent quite a few stories to them, and keep getting rejected. I think I'll take the Heather Abraham approach to it. Just keep submitting until they publish me out of frustration.

And it is a momentous day today, as this morning at Caribou I past 95,000 words. This is officially the most words I've ever written for a single story. I hope to keep the flow going.

Not too much to post about the house this week. Tonia was busy with other things and I was gone, not that I contribute much. I'm certain there will something to report next week.