Long, long day on the road today. Started out early from my rest area just south of El Paso Texas. The highway there parallels the Rio Grande river for about a 100 miles, and it is nice to see all the fields and orchards along the road. I-10 soon takes off and heads nearly due east however, and for the next 200+/- miles it is mostly pretty flat and featureless. Just miles and miles of mesquite and rabbit brush and not much else. There are mountains sticking up here and there along the way, most likely some remnant of some volcanic action many years ago, but it just wasn't that interesting to look at, and there aren't even that many signs of humans about. A small town here and there, a few scattered houses, some occupied.... most not.
   By mid afternoon the landscape had changed to a more broken, rolling hill type of topography. Vegetation also increased to where there were scrub oak mixed in with the mesquite. An hour or two further and the hills were covered with mostly juniper and cedars, very reminiscent of much of far western Colorado.
    So more than 400 miles today and now I'm sitting in a truck stop waiting for it to get late enough for me to go to bed. One of the problems is that I passed through another time zone around noon, so it is now effectively 2 hours later than I am use to. My watch says it is now 8:15, but my body and mind still think it is only 6:00... it may be a long night of reading for me.
    I am also now backed into the back lot of a truck stop in, what I think is, Junction Texas. I have never stayed in a truck stop before, but there are only a few trucks here so far this evening, and there are plenty of empty spots around. So I am going to give it a shot and hope for the best.
   Turns out that I am only a little more than 100 miles away from the state park I want to stay in tomorrow night. My plan, if they have any openings, is to spend 3 nights there and just relax for a couple of days. The park itself looks kind of interesting as it is located along the Guadeloupe River, but it is also less than 45 miles from San Antonio, home of the Alamo and the River Walk. So the plan is to spend Sunday in town and see if I can see at least those two sights. It would also be nice to sit down to a real nice meal of Mexican food. I'm thinking tamales would be nice. Not quite turkey and dressing, but not too bad either.


brk*