Today started bright and early at 5AM..... I don't know if we were just ready to get going or to get away from the "shady" motel we were staying.... This pic below shows you what I saw for the first hour or so of the drive... It was dark so there wasn't much else to look at.
When the sun rose it revealed fields and fields of windmill farms... You have probably seen these on tv.... They harvest the wind to make electricity. There must have been thousands of these on the drive across I-20. To get this shot we had to venture off the beaten path... we drove down 2 or 3 gravel roads to get this close. It was quite an adventure. Below the windmill pic is a picture of one of a gazillion cacti that line the roads.
This is one of a billion oil rigs that we saw today.... Thank God for windmills, cacti, and oil rigs because that was the extent of the 10 hour drive today... The temp. at all these pics was about 106... it was the desert dry heat though.. not too bad.
When we got to the last town (Pecos) we were gonna see for 3 hours we decided to stop for lunch... We grabbed the GPS and I found a place called Leroy's BBQ.... A local joint.... we set the GPS to go there and off we went... When we got there we saw the sign below...
This was Leroy's... Obviously the GPS did not know that Leroy had decided to close shop... This is one of many abandoned businesses... Pecos claim to fame however was that it was the home of the first ever rodeo!!!
Since Leroy's was closed we decided to eat next door at the Dairy Mart... It was like a Spanish version of a southern greasy spoon... Not too bad... and pretty cheap prices!
This is Matt and I in the Dairy Mart... This was 1 of 3 tables in the place.
After what seemed to be forever (11 hours total) we arrived in El Paso, TX... We went to Fort Bliss Army base where we met our friends Lt. Jake Wade and his wife Jen... Jake was a former RA of mine and his wife Jen was a friend of mine from NGC... They gave us a great tour of the city... Notice the small river in the pic below... That is the Rio Grande... Just beyond that river is Mexico.... It was CRAZY to see the poverty difference that was created just beyond the river... It was a VERY visible difference!!! The name if the Mexican town you are look at is Juarez.
After looking at Mexico, we rode literally just a few hundred feet to see the University of Texas At El Paso Stadium... It was possibly the nicest stadium I had ever seen.. It sat between 2 mountains...
After a great dinner at a local Texas BBQ called Rudy's we headed back to Jake and Jen's to put their boys to bed and hang out for a while before bed... It was SOOO good to reconnect with them after all these years... It was like we saw them just yesterday, but its been like 6 years.... Thanks to both of you guys for making us feel right at home. It was great... Next time you guys are in South Carolina give us a call!!!
Day 3 Stats:
Drive Time-10 hrs
600 Miles
125.00 in Gas
Gas: $3.85 in Abilene/ $3.89 in Pecos
5 comments:
Glad that my two favorite men are having a great time! Miss you and take care. Love ya! Joye
GO LONGHORNS!! This is one place that Justin wants to visit, he's a big Longhorn fan.
I thought the picture of the sleeping Tom Sawyer was precious.
I'm off to visit Mattie's site. I'll check in later on, Mama permitting.
Megie
Hey Jed! I got your blog through Angie (we work together) :)
I hope all is well.... I'd love to catch up some time!
My husband is not far from you- he's in ft hood tx..... going to Iraq in a few days.
Hope to talk to you soon!
here's my blog:
http://christiefowler.wordpress.com/
what? Awesome !!!!
I'm so jealous that y'all are out driving across the country and I'm stuck in my office. I so want to do what y'all are doing...someday. But, I wanna drive it in a VW van! Looks like so far we have higher gas prices here than anywhere else...so much for the days when you used to fill up in GA because they had cheap gas. Y'all be safe.
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