KILGOROUND
BILL WOODALL

NOTES FROM a road trip:

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SOME towns grow toward their major highways, some don't. Kilgore is inching its way in the direction of the interstate; Vernon seems to be moving away from Hwy. 287, the ribbon that connects it to the rest of the world.

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THERE are a lot of motor homes with a For Sale sign taped to the windshield. Gasoline costs, based on anecdotal observation, are surely a factor.

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LEAVING Kilgore, we first saw $4 gasoline at Raton, New Mexico. In Arizona, near the Grand Canyon, we paid $4.349 for regular unleaded fuel.

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OUR little corner of the world is not known for its crop harvest. We don't raise much corn and wheat is an oddity in Kilgore, but we surely grow more produce than the area around Moab, Utah.

MOAB does grow more tourists per acre, though, than we do.

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GRAND Junction, Colo., is known for - among other things, sweet, succulent corn. Grows this year are reducing the acreage devoted to sweet corn because of a labor shortage. Apparently the administration's war on illegal immigration is having some effect.

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IN the Indian reservation area of far southern Utah, a stretch of highway has been adopted by the family of B.A. Bigman.

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TWO-WHEELED vehicles are an increasingly large part of the transportation network. Motorcycles and scooters seem to represent about 10 percent of the private transportation network in much of the southwest.

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THE center-of-the world, psychic reading industry is still active in Sedona, Ariz. At some shops though, where crystals and vortex alignment are the focus, they've taken to calling it Personal Intuitive Assessment rather than psychic reading.

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CLOSER to home: Here comes Shakespeare.

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Celebrating birthdays today (Sunday) are Patty McCarty, Wendy McDonald, Lana Carol Peyton, Chris Newsome, Kelly Benairdes, Angie York, Joe Nash, Mary Ann Clapp, Karan Brunson, Diane Silvertooth, Gloria Jones, Ronnie Hendrix Jr., David Covnet, Ron Dale Sullivan, Colleen Carter, Shirley Kucifer, Tammie Scheehan, Opal Cansler.

Happy Anniversary for Sunday to Truman and Laverne Foster, Joe David and June Clark, Mr. and Mrs. C.R. Lloyd, Gregg and Melissa Johnson.

Blowing out the birthday candles on Monday are Lacey Krantz, Jamie Johns, John Hargis, Cecelia Smith Wilson, Shannon Carter, Barry Nowlin, Keith Lewis, Heather Wiggins, James Billings, Lindsey Kee, Lindsey Sullivan, Audrey Fowler, Christopher Chance Hales, Stephanie Scott, Robert C. Shelburne.