THE 2026 HOMECOMING RUN — ARIZONA OR BUST
THE ROADSHOW
Twenty-nine seasons of careful driving, and this year every mile bends toward Oatman.
Twenty-nine seasons of careful driving, and this year every mile bends toward Oatman.
I'll be straight with you, friend: I don't publish addresses. Never have. The Tabernacle is not a building yet — it's a yellow truck, and a yellow truck goes where the county says, when the axle allows, if the Lord agrees. Below is the route as I intend it. Towns are real. The rest is between me, the truck, and the road. When I'm set up, you'll know: hand-painted sign out, rope up, generator humming. Ask around town for the ball truck. Somebody will point.
Do NOT drive out looking for these lots with a map. The map does not know them. Come across me honest or write me a letter. — R.O.
| WHEN (ROUGHLY) | TOWN | WHERE (ROUGHER) | NOTES FROM ME | ODDS |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Early July, give or take | Amarillo, Texas | The caliche lot behind where the old Bola Grande Steakhouse stood before it burned. Locals remember. You'll know it by the smell of nothing. | Cattlemen's country. Donor intake table out all week. Bring paperwork. | LIKELY |
| Mid-July, thereabouts | Tucumcari, New Mexico | The gravel apron across from the fallen-down Zamorra Bros. tire sign. The sign fell in '09. The gravel stayed loyal. | Twentieth-some year stopping here. Good people. Bad gravel. | PROBABLE |
| Late July if the heat breaks | Santa Rosa, New Mexico | The dirt turnaround past the old Cuddy's Dairy Maid Deluxe, which is gone now, so really I'm just describing dirt. | Evening ledger reading held wherever the shade lands. | HEAT PERMITTING |
| First bit of August | Albuquerque, New Mexico | A fella named Porfirio lets me use his uncle's lot. I don't know the address. Porfirio doesn't either. | Pair No. 094 viewing goes by sign-up sheet at the ramp. The big ones draw a crowd. | IF PORFIRIO ANSWERS |
| Second week of August, loosely | Gallup, New Mexico | North of the tracks, west of the wash, in the flat spot where the Bendix Curio Barn was before the wind took it. | Rock-and-mineral folks camp nearby. Fine neighbors. They understand keeping things. | WIND PERMITTING |
| Middle of August | Holbrook, Arizona | The pull-through by the old Sunliner Court, which the highway department says was never there. The highway department wasn't there. I was. | First Arizona stop of the homecoming leg. I get emotional. Fair warning. | LORD WILLING |
| Late August | Winslow, Arizona | Ask at the diner counter — not that diner, the other one — for where the ball truck parks. They'll say the Hackett lot. There is no Hackett. There is a lot. | Ledger volumes I–IV out on the folding table, weather permitting. | PROBABLE |
| Turn of September | Flagstaff, Arizona | Up in the pines someplace. Elevation's hard on the seals so I keep this one quiet and short. | Seals checked twice daily. Zero broke since 1997 and not starting in the pines. | SHORT STOP |
| Early September | Seligman, Arizona | Where the Whiting Bros. never had that station folks swear they remember. In that exact spot of misremembering. | Last stop before the grade. Truck gets a full going-over. | TRUCK PERMITTING |
| Mid-September | Kingman, Arizona | My mechanic's cousin's yard. If you find it, you've gone too far into somebody's yard. | Building fund report read aloud, Saturday-ish, noon-ish. | NEAR CERTAIN |
| When the aspens turn | Oatman, Arizona | Home. The lot is mine and the donkeys know the way better than you will. | The homecoming. Groundbreaking at the Tabernacle site at dawn, whichever dawn I say. The burros are expected and they will attend. | HOMECOMING |
Forty minutes if you rush, but nobody rushes. You'll see all 312 pairs, the donor ledgers, the velvet shelf, and the truck herself. After sundown I read from the ledger under the lights, and I read as long as folks stand there, which has gone as late as it needed to.
Pictures allowed everywhere except Pair No. 001 — Roscoe never liked cameras and death don't change a dog's opinions. Donors visit their own pairs free, forever, no appointment. That's carved in the door.
Every winter I route the next season by hand with a paper map and a ruler at my kitchen table. Letters received by December get considered. Letters with hand-drawn maps of good lots get considered first.