Road trip!

We just got back from our summer road trip from Phoenix, AZ to Houston, TX. 99% of the time we were on secondary roads so we got to see small towns and a variety of scenery you don't get from I-10 or I-40. The shear vastness of the Southwest is humbling. We had cell phones with patchy service and a laptop computer that didn't come out of its case the whole trip. Although it was just a long weekend, it was kind of liberating to be a bit out of touch for a bit.

Phoenix
Cleaning out the storage unit in Phoenix turned out to be easier than anticipated. George was there to help get some stuff organized and shuffled around. We shipped some stuff, hit Salvation Army a couple of times, and crammed the rest into the car. Friday around 3 p.m. after a fun-filled session at the DMV to get the car registered we were heading N.E. out of PHX.

Show Low, AZ
Our first stop was Show Low, Arizona. The weather was cool (anything is cooler than the valley anyway) and the people were friendly. I got a big kick out of the morning rush heading out of town. Real cowboys herding their flock of sheep across I-60 delayed our exit Sat a.m., much to my delight. All in a day's work for them, but it was like something out of the movies for city-folk like us.


Socorro, NM

We had an abrupt, unplanned stop about half way between Magdelena and Socorro when the left rear tire blew out. The biggest pain was emptying the truck to get to the spare. Richard handled it in short time. And although there's very little traffic on that road, the people that did come by all stopped to offer help.

Shortly after that, we went by the National Radio Astronomy Observatory NRAO site http://www.aoc.nrao.edu/ I didn't know what the heck all this equipment was at the time, but suspected it had something to do with the aliens that are known to frequent the area; after all, we were only 3 hours out of Roswell!!

Roswell, NM
Yeah! We arrived in Roswell with one hour to spare before the Discount Tire placed closed for the weekend. Four new tires made me much more confident about facing the entirety of Texas the following day. The International UFO Museum and Research Center in Roswell was pretty much everything I had expected. It reminded me of my pilgrimage to Graceland about the better part of 20 years ago. They 'curator' told us they get about 165,000 visitors a year, which is nothing to scoff at considering it is located in the S.W. corner of New Mexico pretty far off the beaten track.

Lubbock to Houston, TX
We left Roswell on Sunday morning with the intent on getting at least as far as Austin. Seeing the landscape filled with oil rigs and cotton fields was no surprise, but we didn't expect to run into one enormous wind farm that seemed to run from Sweetwater all the way to Abilene. These giant white turbines were a thing of beauty set against a clear blue sky. Based on the articles I've read, Texas ranks #1 in Wind energy in the U.S. This wind project is the epitome of how they do things in Texas.
Big. Really Big!
http://www.seco.cpa.state.tx.us/re_wind.htm

R&R in the Houston area
It was great to get into Houston and see Doug again. After spending a few long days in the car, it was nice to go walking at Buffalo Bayou. http://www.buffalobayou.org/
The next day we took a trip down to Galveston. There was a lot of damage but a lot of rebuilding going on. Walking around on the Strand, the high water water was well over six feet. Many of these buildings had survived the Great Galveston Hurricane of 1900 and were being renovated once again in the aftermath of Ike.

Wednesday morning we were flying home, leaving the car with Doug. In the fall we'll be back to visit Doug and a few more friends in Houston and then resume our road trip. Next stop - Florida.















Here's links to a complete set of photos:
http://picasaweb.google.com/closethedistance/Roswell?feat=directlink

http://picasaweb.google.com/closethedistance/PHXHOU2009?feat=directlink