Roswell to Ozona

Hello my friends! I am sure you've been on pins and needles wondering about how the ant situation played out. Well, the cab of the truck was littered with little teeny, tiny ant corpses this morning. There were two incredible specimens that managed to survive the "blast" and I blew them out the window into the Texas desert. They will most likely begin breeding a new super race of ants...sorry....
So we departed from Roswell at around 10:00 after stopping at Starbucks for beverages and oatmeal ( and the new Robert plant C.D...who knows when I'll get new music?!). The drive was pretty much the same as it's been for the last five days. The scenery is interchangeable other then some is a bit greener but it's all a lot of nothing. We missed our turn at one point and were headed west to El Paso instead of south so we had to take a "ranch road"to get back on track. It's a nice two lane paved road with a 65 mph speed limit and it was really cool. We got out at one point to stretch our legs and it was absolutely silent . I took a minute to take it all in..the smell; grasses,sage and dust, the sounds; crickets, rustling of the brush and the stirring of the wind. How long must it have been like this? How many others have experienced theses same sensations? I marveled at the paradox of a wide open space filling me up. Rather then a sense of desolation, I felt overwhelmingly connected and a part of something huge. Time and space,past, present, hopefully future all connected. Then I thought about how all of this must have been exactly the same in 1890 and that in 2090 my grandson could end up standing here at 86 years old wondering the same thing. We will all have long sinced moved on yet so much would , and does, remained unchanged. I took a couple of pictures, one using the timer so we could both be in it and we set off again. For the next several miles I listened to Tom Waits while John captained us through the vastness. I couldn't shake the feeling of being filled, touched, that I fit, albeit fleetingly, on this plane.
Eventually we came to a crossroad that had once been a community. All that remained were empty buildings, a small cafe and a post office. We had some postcards to mail, so we turned around. As we pulled up next to the mail truck, John asked the driver if the post office was open. "No, it closes at 2:00. I'm just waiting to pick up some mail." He told us about his route. Lots of driving long distances and usually dealing with very little mail. I was surprised that there was a post office here at all.
Eventually we pulled into Pecos. We went to the Pecos museum which had 50 rooms. Back in the day,it had been a salloon and boarding house. Next door was Judge Beans office. There was an animated salloon keeper who told the story of two people getting shot in there. Upstairs there were lots of great photos, saddles, some of the rooms were set up just like they had been then. It was fun and we were really glad we stopped even though it ate up part of our day. After that we found the post office among streets of closed up store fronts and an empty movie theatre. We sent off our postcards and found a Dairy Queen. Once we finished, I took over the driving and about 3 hrs later as the sun was setting in the rear view mirror, we pulled into a small town called Ozona. Our hotel is lovely. We went to a nearby store and bought Michaelina's frozen dinners and a gallon of water. Back at the hotel, as I "cooked" dinner, John got a load of laundry going. Once I'm done with this, I'll call the kids, shower and go to sleep. Another full day...

once again the pictures are being difficult so...more will be revealed...