Scooting across country......

I looked at some of the photos I took on that ‘boring day’ through New Mexico, and found that it was not, after all as boring as I had thought…… There were some lovely views, some awesome moments and a really humbling one too. And that was the day we saw that man with his two artificial legs running down the road. Dang – if he can face his troubles like that…….. wow. I was acting like a spoiled brat saying that it was boring and uninteresting. Sometimes that happens when we see so much wonder, so many awesome things – then our expectations change and the simply beautiful becomes boring in our eyes. I hope that does not happen too often with me again.

Anyway, after breathing a little easier after our first night in Roswell, we took the bikes out of hiding – all clean and dust free now – and rode though the town. We did about 7 miles in total all along the sidewalks. It was easy as there was no one around! One lady seemed to be at every bus stop, it was quite spooky for a while there. I went in to one of the shops to look for a particular item that we had seen and the guy just would not stop talking, saying the same things over and over again. It was very weird - he even looked a little bit alien. Eventually I just said, while he was still talking, that I hoped he had a good day, and left – he just stared after me with a blank, bland look on his face. The item that we were looking for, he said, never arrived from China – all fell off a ship. Ok. Well, about two shops later, I found tons of them at half the price he was going to charge me had he had any!

And on up the road we pedaled, doglet in the basket behind Frank’s seat, quite happy for a change. The street lights have tops on them with alien eyes on them and for a block or three of the town – everything is Alien related. Yes, I took some photos. They are up already J. Then the town quickly became scruffy, nothing touristy, nothing clean, until Walmart – way up the road which had spacecraft and aliens painted on the front of it. It’s much like any other town and no reason not to be. There is a good sense of humor about the aliens as well as serious research centers all around.

Outside of Roswell is pretty much more of what we saw leading up to it…….. apart from the Bottomless Lakes State Park. These are enormous big potholes in the hillsides filled with water and now surrounded by campers too. The one pond is shaped like two circles linked together. On the one side, fresh water fish live, on the other side the water is too saline for them to survive. The water is pretty clear and it’s interesting to see that all these ‘potholes’ are almost in a line, marching along the curve of the hill.

So we got in a bike ride, did a walk around the Lakes and then the wind came up again. So we did some more relaxing and had an early night, ready to move on the next morning. Although we were not in a rush at all, we were ready to move by 9am, all packed up, hooked up and eager. But the bakkie was not pulling right. Sigh. It was left in reverse and we dragged it a very short distance at only around 5 miles an hour, but dragged it in gear nevertheless. Big Sigh. Frank quickly took it out of gear and on we went. And no, we have not yet unhooked it to see if it works. I don’t think I could stand another one happening like this. In 2003 we killed a bakkie by doing this, but it was in first gear, in Montana and it spewed its engine parts onto the pavement in a sorry display of annoyance before totally giving up the ghost. This one has not even spewed its oil. Can I be hopeful? Tomorrow will tell.

Anyway, one the bakkie was safely out of gear again , she towed beautifully and on we went out of New Mexico into Texas. The wind blew all the time, not just blew, but made it unpleasant driving at times, whipping us around on the road and blasting our sides with sand and tumbleweeds. There are oil wells pumping away gently all over the hillsides, some really big and others much smaller, but pumping away nevertheless looking like very lazy dinosaurs. I would have to make one of them look like a big duck, rabbit, woodpecker, a dinosaur – something! Give people driving through Texas something really interesting to see! There were many, many acres of cotton and millet and a tremendous amount of land with absolutely nothing – sometimes literally just rusty red sand and at other times solid, tightly packed cactus and scrub bushes. We stopped so that I could see a cottonfield up close – I picked a piece too and realize what a really rough time all those that had to hand pick cotton must have had!

My camera sat hopefully in my lap, mile after mile, but did not get to work much at all. I started taking photos of all the deserted houses along the way, ramshackled, broken or just empty, but quickly realized the pointlessness of that. There are SO many, it’s quite unbelievable….. The little towns we drove through have one or two places that show signs of life, and then just broken down old businesses, buildings and houses. I wonder if there really are people that still live there – it must be a very difficult way of life. A few of the towns had red brick road for a block or three down the center of town, and then equally ramshackle before and after it. The old buildings in some of these towns are right out of an old Western movie! I love them…

Most of the towns have a good proportion of their buildings derelict. I wonder what happened to the people, did they also just leave their houses to rot? Where are they now? There must be so many sad and tough stories judging by the number of abandoned places all over Texas particularly. Also in 2003 we drove through the lower part of Texas when we went to Big Bend, and found the same sad situation – total ghost towns and some with just a few people living there, but how they survive, I just don’t know.

In some of the towns you can see that the guy that makes signs out of iron has made a goodly fair amount of money. In one town the road signs were all made with a picture – I will put up photos – the description is not coming to me now. Kinda like iron cutouts. Very attractive.

Ok – here’s a little bit of a gross question….. why do some bugs bleed yellow, others red, others bright pink and others clear? The design on the windshield is very colorful after a days driving and it got me thinking about why the different color spotches. Any answers?

We stayed overnight in a little campground in the town of Throckmorton – sounds so terribly British to me and I can just hear my dad saying it. The grounds were very hard with some grass desperately trying to grow out of it, and there were deep cracks all over the place. I stuck a stick down into one but it did not find the bottom. So I stopped thinking about it as they were ALL around! Everywhere. And noticeable too.

We found some lovely looking prickly pears and I went and picked a few, peeled them and put them in the fridge to cool off. They were awful! Not like I remember at all and we quickly threw them out. They tasted like old beets and stained everything they even saw! What I did not get rid of so quickly was the prickles they left in my fingers – tiny, tiny shards of something that I could not see, but could definitely feel. Very aggravating, but finally they left too. While I was outside trying to get some of the prickles off those prickly pears, Allie and I were suddenly surrounded by a fair size swarm of hornets or wasps or something… doglet quickly learned to fly and I got us in without being stung, and the buggers hung around the door, angrily buzzing for a good amount of time too.

And the wind howled all night long, rocking the motor home and giving it almost the feel of it being driven. Many, many times we were woken up by the violence of a gust of wind and it definitely did not make for a restful night. Also, when we woke up, the rv was definitely not as level as it was the night before, leaving us in the heads down position again, and we did not have a flat tire either. Back to those cracks in the ground? We noticed one of the other rv’s there leaning rather decidedly to the left, but he seemed to be a permanent fixture there. We were happy to leave out of there, even though the wind seemed to enjoy tormenting us for the next 3 hours or so.

I navigated us clear around Dallas Fort Worth, via smaller and definitely less congested roads, through farmlands and more small little dying towns. We passed Bugscuffle Road, Toad Hollar Road and found ourselves in Oklahoma soon after that. I remember those names from the first trip we made out this way, but I had not realized that of all the roads in Texas, we would be driving the same little ones again!

Along the way we stopped at one of the rest stops provided along the way, and there were glorious big Pecan trees… now we have about 10 pounds of nuts in the rv too and backs that creak just a bit louder too! Lovely and fresh and chemical free nuts. We keep looking for another such rest stop.

And we drove and drove and drove…… at 4pm we were seriously looking for a campground. I would have liked to have had internet as withdrawal symptoms were setting in again, and are definitely worse right this very moment! We passed one, then another and then all of a sudden there were no more and the sun was setting….. We stopped at a Walmart but that was nowhere near level and no one there knew of a campground nearby. So on we went.

At the top of a little hill in the middle of nowhere but next to a small and surprisingly busy road, there is a level spot that now has us sitting on it for the night. There is a house across the road, but they have their internet secured so I cannot tie on through them. And we are all exhausted! I wish some signs would say – last campground! Last internet service! or something….. they tell one when there is the last cold beer or gas station around and should do this for campers too. Oh –and this is a dry county too, so we could not even buy any beer at Wallyworld!

It’s strange how the magic of the landscape has gone – its just ‘normal’ here in the middle of the country. There are none of those camera hopping, awe inspiring views around. One moment we have a clear view of nothing for miles the next we are boxed in by tall scrub trees all around on narrow winding little roads. It’s very different and has a very different and almost flat feeling feel to it – and I am not talking about the lack of mountains here either.

Anyway. We are really close to the Diamond digging place and I hope that even if we find nothing, that it’s a lovely place, interesting, gentle but definately fruitful too! There is a state park there so we will be able to camp nearby and then on the way out from that we will probably stop at the Hot Springs National Park which is not too far north of us now.

It will be Monday by the time you get this, and I will then get in any emails and updates sent by you since Friday night.

If we find the equivalent of the Hope Diamond this week – I will send you a postcard from……….. ummmmm, somewhere else .
Love and light
Annie


Determination.......