Out in the West Texas Town of El Paso....

Day 17 - Fort Stockton TX to Lordsburg NM

(yeah, I never heard of it either)

4oo miles

Okay, we're in the desert so I guess it goes without saying that it was sunny when we woke up. Well, actually it wasn't...it was still dark, but clear! Being on the edge of the time zone is about the only way I manage to see a sunrise and it was pretty. I'm more of a sunset kind of gal...just face the opposite direction, it's all the same and you don't have to get up early!

We had over 240 miles to travel to El Paso to meet up with an Internet friend and I couldn't wait to say hello to her and her husband. We were running a little late, partly due to the fact that we needed gas...sooooo much gas. It took $145, the gas was $3.39/gallon. Every day the news says, 'The price of oil hit a new high today...' so I can't imagine what it'll be when we get California or, by the end of this trip! Oh yeah, and we put more gas in when left El Paso...another $125. Ouchie.

The ride between Fort Stockton and El Paso was...ah, rather

BORING *sung ala Jo Anne Worley in Laugh-In* Boy, I'm really dating myself there and my kids are scratching their heads. Baby Boomer stuff, kids.

At point we could see something crossing the highway...was it deer? No, it looked more like some BIG birds...did some emu's escape? Getting close we realized they looked like wild turkeys, but their legs were too long. Missed them by inches, thank heavens, hitting them would have really messed up the front of the RV. Later I spoke to my * Ranger Rick, Discovery Channel, National Geographic, knows everything about anything that swims, runs, crawls, or flies* son about it. All I said was that they looked like turkeys because they had all that gobble de gook on their face, but their legs were way long. And without missing a beat, he tells me they are 'Rio Grande Wild Turkeys'. How does he remember these things? This is the kid who couldn't for the life of him remember what his homework assignments were..

Later we stopped at tee pee for the dogs to pee pee and I saw the neatest bug. It was iridescent blue/green...I took a picture of it, of course. Jim's walking back to the RV, yelling back at me who is two inches from the ground, "What the hell are you doing now?" After all these years, nothing that I do should surprise him.

Got a nice little bonus half way to El Paso. I thought the Mountain Time Zone was at the state line, but no, it was half way to El Paso. Now, we were running a little early, cool. I could use a time zone on my way to work sometimes.

We met up with my friend and her husband. They took us to lunch at a nice place that served great salads, they had a full menu but we were trying to do as little damage as possible to the diets. They serve a gosh darn delicious muffin with the salad...I could have just said 'no' but I didn't!

They are such an interesting couple. We all hit it off just great...and had a lively conversation. Unfortunately, it had to end too soon. Hopefully, we can meet up again someday.

We headed west on I10 again, Jim didn't want to take a side trip, so we drove on. The last half-way decent campground was listed in this little town we stopped in for the night. This is a small, isolated, desert town in New Mexico, do the math. We didn't even uh-hook the car, decided to stay right here and guard....er, I mean do the laundry.

Tomorrow headed to Tombstone and Tuscon. Wanna bet it'll be sunny, warm and windy?