Two more long days of travel have put me all the way over on the border between New Mexico and Texas. Went through the town of Las Cruces, NM just a short time ago, and the town of El Paso, TX is next up on the map, at least as far as larger cities go.
   Yesterday was a pretty long day for me. I kept going south on hwy 95 out of Parker AZ until I made it all the way down to the intersection of it with I-8. Along the way there was plenty of open vistas with lots of real craggy type mountains scattered about. Evidently the remanents of old volcanoes that had erupted out of cracks in an even older seabed. They weren't all that tall, but very photogenic.... so I even stopped and took a few pictures. One thing that really surprised me was all of the trailers and RV's that had simply pulled off the highway a few hundred yards and set up camp amongst the cactus and mesquite. Some had solar panels set up on their roofs or next to their units and some had plastic water carriers and extra large propane tanks also, so they were all set to spend weeks or even months in the area.
   I got into Yuma AZ around two in the afternoon after passing many, many miles of fields growing veggies of all kinds. A short list would include lettuce of assorted kinds, spinach, broccoli, cabbage and green onions as well as fields growing hay and nut and citrus orchards. It is always amazing to me to see so much being grown in what was once a desert if you just add a little water.
   Turning east I headed for Tuscan thinking that somewhere along the line I would run into a rest area of some kind to spend the night in. But there wasn't a single place along the way other than the Border Patrol station we all had to drive through just to the east of town. It wasn't until a good 100 miles east of Tuscan before I finally found an open rest area to stop at. Since it was after 9:00 when I pulled in, all of the spaces had already filled with sleepy truckers. I did manage to find one spot on the entrance road in however that didn't have a truck parked in it. I had a small bite to eat, just some cheese and crackers and some home canned tuna that my friends in Oregon had given me. It was the most amazing stuff... certainly not anything like canned tuna. I had a hard time putting it down, but even I fill up after awhile. It was a little noisy where I was parked as trucks continued to pass through, but I slept well even though it was an hour later this morning because of the time change I passed through.
    It has been a pretty easy day to travel today as the roads are nearly empty except for the truckers who didn't make it home in time for Thanksgiving. I did have a 20-25 mph headwind for most of the morning, which really sucked as far as gas mileage goes. Instead of a steady 60-65 mph rate of travel the truck now thought I was trying to do 90 and adjusted the rate of gas consumption accordingly. Let me just say that I am happy that the cost of gas has come down so much in the past couple of months.
   So I hope to go another 60 miles before pulling in for the night. I guess it would be nicer to be having dinner with family or friends on this day, but really it isn't that big of a deal for me. I just keep remembering that the past 4-5 Thanksgivings were spent sitting on a beach in Florida sipping margarita's and reading a book. Guess I will just have to postpone it until another day.




brk*