It is always with renewed anticipation that we head down to the southwest each year - which little towns will have grown? will we get through Kansas City before rush hour begins? will there be big cotton bales in Kansas this year and will have any towns blown away in tornadoes since last spring? We've been taking the same route - Highway 54 - for the past dozen years now and have become attached as much as one can to those little farms and homes on the byways. We head from the cold and cloudy north through the flat and farmlands of Iowa and Kansas to the warm bursts of air that welcome us to southern Kansas and then New Mexico. Our New Mexican friends will be chilled but we'll have stripped down to shorts and shirt sleeves and sneakers and grins. We'll pull out our sunblock and hats with sunbills rather than ear warmers and will keep one eye on the weather channel so that we can bask in our good fortune down in the southern tier.