Last day in the states...

One door closes and another one opens.....we are about 130 miles from Brownsville, Texas which is where we are crossing. That means we will get up and in 2 hrs time be entering Mexico. We will be stopping in Tampico the first night where I anticipate having wi-fi ( we got the hotel name and info off a blog from some people who just drove down in May) so the plan is to chat with you all tomorrow night. After that...I don't know...it could be two days until we arrive in Merida where I can most likely update you. I am telling you all of this as a way of saying if you hear nothing for a week please let someone know! We are going from tampico to Vera Cruz to Villahermosa to Merida. Climbers, hikers and other wilderness folk always let someone know their plan and we are sort of heading into a type of wilderness so...

Today was pretty uneventful. lots of driving!! we really didn't see anything too interesting. I drove a lot today to so that means the cameraman (or in this case woman) was incapacitated ( not to be confused with decapitated or emaciated...). The landscape was much greener . It actually looked a lot like the drive down I-5 to Corvallis. We got to Corpus Cristi and had to decide how much farther to push it. My concern was that we still needed to get mexican insurance which required a copying machine. You know, we picked some sage that was growing at newspaper rock and John has been smudging us and the truck as we start each day. Just to cover all the bases we have also been using the magic wand. Some of you know what this is...some don't...my friend Carol had one that she used when we played Yahtzee and I coveted it. Luckily I found one at the dollar store. You push a button and it makes a magical sound. Well, we've been "wanding" the truck too. Now, you may think we've lost it..but this hotel we found in the middle of nowhere...Kingsville Texas...has it all and for less than we've been paying for the motel 6. The people are super nice and helpful, made copies of some documents for us, helped us with internet and a copying machine so we could get our Mexican insurance, gave us beverages AND the room is huge and lovely. Who knows if it's the sage and the wand or just good Karma. Whatever it is I thank the powers that be for bringing us here.

On this trip we've seen lots of empty spaces, blue sky, cactus, blast sites, longhorns a roadrunner! crazy signs ,giant crosses, petroglyphs, arches, small towns, poverty, excess, historical artifacts and lots of really sweet people.

So, tomorrow morning we cross...isn't it amazing?? It is to us. We regularly ask each other " 20 years ago would you ever have thought we'd be doing this?' No way. Life is so interesting and amazing if you simply choose to live it. It's like the song lyric says-" if you're bored than you're boring". Read a book, take a class, get to know someone new, try something you've never done,wear something totally different, take a trip, take a risk, don't take yourself so seriously. THIS IS YOUR LIFE. We aren't incredibly gifted, special, affluent people. we just had an idea, made a plan and saw it through. Simple . So, I will post a few pictures that you haven't seen and get ready for bed. We have a very big day tomorrow.Love to you all.

Pics form yesterday

So I was having a lot of trouble with pics so I'll try again....

No Phone!!

Well guys....we knew it was coming but didn't expect it yet...we woke up this morning to find the phone has been cut off. It feels weird. This whole experience has been like much of life- taken in increments. First it was leaving work, then it was leaving our house, leaving our town, our state, now our communication and in another day or so our country. It really started when we had to go through and get rid of our belongings. I'm not saying I dislike it, it's kind of like deciding you want to go swimming and the waters cold. Sometimes you just dive in to get it over with and sometimes you move in slowly taking a few tentative, bracing steps as you go deeper...So, no more voices only words. Mail doesn't have a sound.. It's Ok..I just took a couple more steps and the water has surrounded my heart. Soon I'll be used to it and I'll push off and swim. Stay in touch y'all!

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...

Day 5 Grants to Roswell

I am sitting on the gaily decorated Motel 6 bedspread in Roswell but friends, even the bright splashes of Americana fail to cheer me. I am saddened and disheartened by what I have found here or should I say what I haven't found here; virtually no UFO kitsch. In fact, the only alien/UFO refernces I've seen have been a plastic little green man at the KFC and a billboard advertising the UFO museum. I asked the desk clerk about this. She informed me that "they" voted to do away with it opting instead to promote Roswell as a retirement community. Retiree's don't like aliens or what? What about Coccoon??Is nothing sacred?

On the way here we passed the Trinity Site. In 1945 the first atomic bomb was tested there. John and I got into a discussion about how many people know what white sands or the trinity site are. How many people know about the Bonneville Salt flats? These are pretty important American events. Is it just that I'm over 50 or what?What do people know about? Celebrity gossip? This weeks episode of Glee (don't get me wrong I'm a huge fan) or Survivor? Who's leading the NFL? I'm not saying these things are bad or wrong but I think there needs to be a balance of the information we take in. Wow....sorry...didn't mean to get on a soapbox here...

O.K..new topic...how about ants. Yes, ants- you heard me right. We acquired a canopy before we left and I'm glad we did, but it seems as though this particular canopy was infested with ants. Now, we had ants at our house too and they really didn't bother me so when John told me about the situation I didn't really care. We've seen 2 or 3 so far on the trip- no big deal. Today, right after we drive by the Trinity Site, I swear to God, they started appearing. I'm not talking one or two, I'm saying for the next hour I was constantly swatting ants. On my legs, arms, hands, shoulders...you get the picture. Usually the ants and I have a truce. I don't kill things. Not spiders, worms, slugs...it's just part of my belief system but today the gloves came off. I must have killed at least a hundred ants and they just kept coming. Now, does anyone else find it odd that this started right after we passed the site of the testing of an atomic bomb? Our theory is that residue from the uranium is still there and the ants picked up on it and it drove them nuts. So after we checked into our hotel we went to Home Depot and bought bug bombs. There was an I Hop next door so we ate dinner and as soon as we got back to the hotel we set them off. One in the cab, one in the canopy. I'll probably have to come back a thousand more times to make up for the karma involved with this deed but I don't want to roll with the ants anymore.

One more bit of news. We went into Albuquerque to the consulate and got our vehicle importation permit!! It was pretty simple but could have been a mess if I hadn't checked the dates as we were leaving. She typed in that we were entering Mexico on March 3rd of next year!

We started out the day on historic Route 66, we got our permit, got dosed with radiation, attacked by ants and I took a really cool picture at a rest stop of a sign warning about rattlesnakes but I somehow must have erased it. Ah, the yin and yang of the road....so there you have it. Tomorrow we'll be in Texas. They say everything is bigger there. Let's hope the combination of radiation and insecticide doesn't create some crazy, giant mutant ants......

a few more..

just thought I'd throw in a few more pics. By the way, the old truck photo came from ....a secret location......where there are hundreds of old cars sitting out in a field.

Onward!

We started our morning off with a free breakfast, well, considering we spent $108.00 on the room I wouldn't really call it free ( too bad I'm not bulemic , I could have totally taken advantage of it). We've been staying at Motel 6's but we were tired and there was no wi-fi at the 6 so we said the hell with it and splurged. Holiday Inn is where we ended up in a "pet room" ...long story...( there was a cocker spaniel across the hall that looked like a curly haired walrus)

Did I mention Green River is some sort of melon hot spot? They are for sale in stands all over the place.We even saw a parade float made to look like a slice of watermelon. It had a hinged door built into the side to allow people to get into it. What if it wasn't really a float? Maybe it's some sort of diabolical Trojan fruit? Other then great melons I don't really know why someone would come here-wait-we did..

Finally, we are on the road. I was in Utah 19 years ago ( I was a mere child) and one of the things I did not get to see was Newspaper Rock. I also did not get to see Arches but I needed to choose one. We are not in a hurry but we do have limited funds ( and remember we splurged on the Holiday Inn) so I opted for the petroglyphs since they were free-no park admission. A lot of the drive was really pretty. Incredible, enormous rock formations jutted up from grassy plains and rolling hills. Some of it was really ugly (these ugly, uninhabitable portions are what was so kindly given to Native Americans to live on...great deal there). We wound our way down a narrow road for a few miles and came to this large boulder with a sheer face under an outcropping, sort of a natural awning. Plastered across the front of this are 1500 year old drawings, petroglyphs-ancient graffitti! It was really a peaceful, spiritual place. We left there and headed back to the main road. There is open range along here and there were 3 or 4 cows walking in a line along the left hand side. We slowed way down because one of them was acting a little skittish. Thank god we did because it ran in front of the car and smashed face first right into a bush. It reminded me of Starla (our dog we left at home with our daughter). A little further up the same road a small flock of birds was flitting by the car. Just as I was thinking how pretty they were and how we don't have them at home, one of them hit the truck. John claimed it was a natural culling of the herd. I told myself maybe it went under the truck but...

We stopped at a store in Moab then headed on to Monticello where we stopped for gas. John got out to wash the windows. "Jill" I looked up as he pulled the bird off the grill. So much for denial.

After eating lunch we were off again and we didn't stop until we got to Grants, New Mexico. It's about an hour and a half west of Albuquerque. We found a Motel 6-$44.00 at this one( we actually got charged $3.00 for the wi-fi) and ordered in a pizza. About 45 min later it still wasn't there. Were they delivering from Albuquerque? John called and they claimed they had attempted to deliver it but had the wrong room....so, at last the food came, several phone calls were made and now the blog is done. Shower, into bed and get up and head into Alb. where we will attempt to go to the mexican consulate to get our vehicle importation papers. If all goes well, we will make it at least to Roswell.You know-spaceships, cover ups, x-files stuff. If you don't hear from me tomorrow, be scared....be very scared.....