Miles and Miles

The desert has changed again. This evening I find myself in Odessa, Texas, after spending last night in El Paso and traveling through New Mexico to get there. Eventually I did fall asleep in Phoenix, some hours later we were late getting up and leaving for the day. Oh wells, we can do that once in a while!

Yesterday I felt like all we did was drive, because in the grand scheme of things, that's exactly what we did. Shortly after leaving Phoenix, we pulled into a rest stop and ended up doing a little shopping from some local Indians. I purchased some jewelery and Nancy some pottery. Its beautiful. Back on the road we passed more and more mountains of Arizona. You'd think I'd get sick of it, but the scenery is forever changing and the mountains are just stunning.

Before leaving Arizona we stopped at The Thing, one of those roadside gimmicks that just suck you in for paying $1 and unsure of what you are going to get. The gas station was just a small part of it (coupled with a Dairy Queen). Erin decided to sit the experience out, so Nancy and I paid our $1 and ventured out to see The Thing, following giant yellow footsteps. well basically it was three sheds of really old 'things' which was hilariously bad and we were in stitches. We'd been in anticipation of The Thing for some 30 miles. I guess it was a welcome distraction and in a bad kinda way was well worth it!

Crossing over into New Mexico I became more aware of the number of cargo train on the train tracks. I guess that's because the Interstate was a lot closer to the train tracks than it had been in the previous states. The landscape changed a little, more red and orange sand than anything else. And big boulders. About half way through our trek across New Mexico, we stopped at Shakespeare, a ghost town just off the interstate. It was actually closed, but we took a few photos as dusk fast approached. Shortly before the boarder, we stopped at Cracker Barrel for dinner and oh my gosh I had forgotten just how much I love the food there! Could have done without the spoilt child screaming but oh wells, these things happen.

By 8pm we'd crossed over the boarder once again, this time arriving in Texas. Yes, El Paso was the stop for last night in a somewhat, lower scale hotel than we'd been staying in! Don't get me wrong, it was clean and all, it just felt, well, creepy. That and you could hear just about everything going on next door or up stairs.

This morning we woke a little late again missing breakfast provided by the hotel which probably wasn't a bad thing. Thus I was introduced to IHOP. International House Of Pancakes. Crickey the menu was mind boggling!! Spanish became a lot more fluent in the people around us and everything printed is suddenly duel language. This is because Mexico is so very close. That and a lot of the South has a high population of immigrants. Anyways, over breakfast we made plans for the day.

First stop, Tony Lama's. Yep, I went and bought a pair of cowboy boots and they are so friggin awesome!! The bottom part is brown and the top part is green and that sounds totally gross but they are so not! The store was massive and had a large range of boots to choose from. Who'd have thought working out shoe size could be so complicated! From getting the boots, we travelled down along the Boarder Highway, looking across into Mexico and being in the shadow of the brown fence which separates the two countries. Its crazy. About 40 miles from El Paso all the traffick was diverted off the Interstate for a secutiry check to make sure vehicles weren't harbouring illegal immigrants. Its so weird.

Pretty much today we just drove. Texas (or this part of it) is rather flat and boring. Yes more desert, but at least the other states have had some elevation and tumble weeds in it.

Odessa is a lot bigger than we thought it would be. Taking a wrong turn actually took us the long way to our hotel and it felt like we'd left the town!! Rumour has it there is a copy of Shakespeares Globe here in town. Perhaps we'll check that out tomorrow before leaving for Dallas.