The Great West, day 2 (TX, NM, AZ)

We began our morning with a stop by Cadillac Ranch where the boys took an opportunity to work on their graffiti skills. These Cadillacs are embedded in the ground similar to the cars we saw years ago at Carhenge in Nebraska.  There are eleven 50-60’s model Cadillacs buried engine first in the ground in a line.  A myriad of spray paint cans lay strewn all around the cars, left behind by former visitors.  The boys seemed to get a thrill out of being allowed to express themselves artistically all over these cars – such freedom. We are now headed out of Texas and watching as the land disappears into the horizon on either side of 40. The windmills are peacefully turning in the distance against the blue skies. (I received a weather notice on my phone this morning that Kalispell is under a winter storm warning until noon today. Hopefully things will be passable in a week out there.) Now as we are approaching the Texas/New Mexico border, all of a sudden there are buttes and mesas erupting from all the plains.  There are still very few trees, and the ones that have grown up are all leaning to the north even though the winds are not that strong right now.  They have been blown over for long enough periods at a time that they now just grow that way.  We have attempted to stop a couple of times for potty breaks when we would come across a gas station off the road only to discover it was a ghost town.  Most still looked to be open from a distance, but no life whatsoever.

Now into New Mexico we can see for FOREVER! The sky is monstrous over these plains.  We've seen no wild life on these plains just lots and lots of sage brush.  Nathan and I were finding it quite difficult to keep our eyes open even when just starting out.  Uugghhh!  He was able to find Mt. Dew, but there aren't many places out here that have the extra caffeine coffee/cappuccino.  And we were only able to tune in 2 different radio stations neither of which was all that interesting to us.  As we got in closer to Albuquerque, the terrain began to become more interesting though with more buttes and mesas speckled with stubby shrubs on dusty ground. Some of the mesas look as though a good shave would clean them up nicely.

 We have witnessed several dust devils out on the horizon and a dust storm to some degree.  We are now into pueblo country where all the houses are earth toned and many have the stereotypical southwestern look to them.  (I personally prefer the New England homes better.) I told Nathan if he thought the dust was bad at our house, it would be absolutely unbearable if we lived out here.  There’s no way I would be able to keep it under control!! We were thrilled to be pulling into Albuquerque both for a rest and also for our first glimpse this trip at the Rockies.  We found a Mexican restaurant recommended by a friend and enjoyed an authentic Mexican lunch.  Andrew is accustomed to helping  himself to our salsa bowls, and try as we might to shield him this time, he managed to get hold of it a couple of times.  Poor guy!!  I was a little disappointed at the chip to salsa ratio when we first arrived but realized quickly that the small amount of salsa came out just right with the chips… a little dab’ll do ya!!

We are headed now for Holbrook, AZ. We opted to get up and finish the drive into Flagstaff tomorrow so that we can enjoy some of what is in this area. We were able to get out and stretch at the Continental Divide. We celebrated our first 1000 miles today and are now celebrating that we have gained two hours today!!  We crossed over into Mountain Time when we came into NM, and AZ doesn’t recognize daylight savings time. So we just earned an extra hour!!  SCORE! It’s nice to know that we will be settled in for the evening in less than an hour at about 7 their time! SIGH! An opportunity to relax a bit on vacation. Go figure! ;) As we finish up our drive tonight we are back into very flat land.