It felt ghosty, being at the Cactus RV Park. Layers of history unraveling and building. There were muddy red tracks in the snow when we arrived. The sun was shining. To get to our spot, we drove through a gap in the former motel. Had it been an opening before, with finish details removed over time, or was a whole unit somehow dismantled? The motel was arranged around a courtyard, which I imagine was grassy, manicured, peopled. Noisy with car trunks closing and children playing and parents calling. Now, there were spaces for campers and motor homes, with scattered posts where campers could plug in their 30 amp electrical cords. In the winter cold, it was deserted, shielded by the surrounding units from the busy road. Another world. Quiet. I was intruder, explorer, disappointed voyeur.

Everywhere the past clung to the decaying buildings. The colors of the red earth stained them and glowed in the exposed bricks; Southwestern reds and yellows still shone on doors. Everything a pale ghost of itself. "We can't tear it down," she said. "It's a historic landmark." So the RV Park nestles around it as it slowly erodes.

Yes—along old Route 66 every town has its fading and preserved remnants along Main Street/Old Route 66, and in museums, of the days when that highway vibrated with life, a vital connector across the country. As I walked, toward sunset, around the buildings, I saw the satisfying shapes of narrow wood-trimmed doors and windows, some with broken glass, some boarded up. I longed to peer inside, to see if anything was left to speak to me about what had happened inside. Were the rooms used for storage? Were any rooms still arranged as they had been before the last customer drove away?

I remembered as a child walking the dusty streets of Orlando, Oklahoma, where my father grew up. The "downtown" had the same red stains on the buildings. There were still several stores housing businesses, next to open and deserted buildings which we would enter and explore. Always, there was a longing to find something that would connect me in a concrete way to the expired days of my father's childhood. That familiar feeling rose again in me in Tucumcari, on Route 66, at the Cactus RV Park.

Down the road, we passed through the door of Del's—beneath the giant steer—and ate lunch. Mine, a New Mexican plate with beans and rice, his with liver, onions and mashed potatoes. Later at the Cactus RV Park, darkness fell as we ate dinner and watched our flat screen tv. Then we retired to our own comfortable bed. There were rumors of snow for the next day, and when we woke it was raining. We left Route 66 and headed for the Interstate and Albuquerque. As we drove, it turned to snow and we watched the temperature fall minute by minute on the dashboard thermometer. Apprehension about the storm mixed with my thoughts about relentless change, and relentless preservation. How we're swimming through time searching for Now, marking it, moving on.