Hello Texas, Goodbye Texas -January 5, 2009

We are at the edge of the Central time zone, which means it is darker later in the morning and lighter later in the day. It feels like we are on Daylight Savings Time. So that’s the story we’re going with for not getting on the road until just before 9 this morning.

Headed down I-40 West through the panhandle of Texas, where I saw my first tumble weed tumbling across the Interstate. Cool, just like I’ve seen in the old Western movies. At least I thought that at the moment. Two minutes later I ran over my first tumbleweed. It was a good sized one and made a pretty good noise hitting the wheel well of the RV. Damn things!

Stopped for gas and lunch in Vega Texas, then back on the road to New Mexico. The landscape changes as you travel through New Mexico. It gets rockier, and the dirt and rock turn different colors. Old Route 66 runs alongside the Interstate for quite a ways. There are many abandoned buildings along the road. Signs and literature talk about the ‘Historic’ Route 66. If you take the romance and hype out, it really is just a way of leaving your abandoned condemned buildings left where they are saving the cost of getting rid of them. They might have something here.

Switched to Mountain Time now, so we’ve gained an hour. Got to Santa Rosa, New Mexico by mid afternoon and decided to quit for the day because of the strong winds. It’s still quite cold, and freezes at night, so Paul wanted to find a place to plug in so there wouldn’t be any question on whether the furnace would have enough electricity to run through the night. We found a place that was inexpensive. There won’t be any pictures posted of this place because I couldn’t find a good angle to snap the photos from that would make this site look good. But the electricity works, and maybe the dogs that are protecting the owners main business will provide security. I might be wrong though; I think the dogs stay inside the fenced acreage to protect the vintage cars and trucks piled up in there.