Texas to Las Cruses

Jovitas Mex Bar and Grill Cornell Hurds Band's hang, Austin

TEXAS

11/22-11/25

Texas.....Texas...

Always been ambiguous about Texas and Texans.  After all George Bush? 

Then there’s the size.  We’ve talked a lot lately and heard a few jokes about how long it will take to drive across this state.  This morning on Hwy 10 West from Austin near Junction we spent the night by the Llano River ( pronounced eeano). The speed limit right after the Llano River on Hwy 10 reads 80 mph!  I believe that’s the first time I’ve seen that speed at least legally.  How can they allow this?  Well its the Texan 3 mile squint or stare.  I look down this freeway and I can clearly see straight as an arrow a point of roadway 3 miles away on the horizon.  The roads are smooth as possible.  There is nothing out here to infringe upon that 3 mile one point perspective.  No bill boards, no fast food chains, no strip malls, just three miles of clear views down the freeway.  One looks a long distance in the Lone Star State.  Its Texas Zen.  The hum of the tires, the focus of one point perspective, the fix of cruise control, the somnambulant drifting mind.   Its a zen lack of distraction.  Texas is a zen of openness.

To a person the people of Texas have been congenial and polite to a fault.  I have slipped in my Mams and Sirs into all my address to people and have felt comfortable and good doing so.  The return of respect comes with the civility of greetings and goodbyes.  Yes sir, yes mam.  Try it for a day or two and you should begin to feel better about yourself.

Austin.  Our first target in Texas was Austin.  From the border of Louisiana having spent that night at a Wall Mart at Lake George we crossed the border into Texas and departed Hwy 10 and eased north west on Hwy 71 for McKinney Falls State part just outside of Austin.  The landscape was dry with a lot of scrubby oak but not parched dry. At camp there was a dry breeze.  Not a moist cool Florida breeze but a dry Texas  Llano breeze and it was comfortable to the skin.  In fact it began to get under my skin with its gentleness and envelopment.  The lack of flying insects added to the overall feeling of mellowness.  We got up early enough the first day to go into Austin about 13 miles away.

Pulling tail thru Texas

Austin, a little crazy, aggressive, musical and eccentric college town is also the capitol of as well as the oldest city in Texas.  It’s a town of contradictions.

We looked up the Jovita Grill and Bar that serves as the home base of the Cornell Hurd Band that plays C&W Swing.  CHB is the original band of my x-brother and law, Frankie, that started in California 40 years ago.  Frankie no longer plays with them and has not for more than a decade but Cornell is still going strong after the usual hard knocks to become an Austin institution.

Hoping to hear them play we missed out as they were on the road until a Thursday and we arrived on a Monday.  That was a little too long of a wait for our restless souls.

After getting the truck’s transmission and engine oils taken care of the next morning we headed westward and almost got out beyond the city limits when we spotted the original “Central Market” grocery store.  With Thanksgiving coming and not much in the larder we stopped.  There is a Central Market in Poulsbo near our home that was based on this store in Austin but this store is huge, packed with all foods and it must have been staffed with 75-100 employees  all who knew their jobs and departments.  Even those working the aisles knew their business.  It was a chaotic madhouse but it was great.  We happened upon some in store made in the bakery only once a year pure butterscotch cream cups.  Jeeze! 

Las Cruses, New Mexico

All stocked up for an Airstream Thanksgiving somewhere in the desert of perhaps Western Texas and continued our way on 71 West looking to hook up again with Hwy 10.

Texas......

Beyond the hill country we entered into a vast sea of open and scrubby plains.  This went on for hours.  Fortunately it was overcast so we were spared the West Texas heat though it reached 84 at one point.

Our goal was to try and make it to Las Cruces, New Mexico by evening from Junction Texas a little over 400 miles.  Our other goal was to have enough fuel and momentum to fly past the section of Hwy 10 that ran alongside the border of NW Mexico to foil kidnappers and gunmen.  We live such a dangerous life.  We made that and into El Paso the last major city in Texas.  What a dirty city.  Looking across the high border fence into the Mexican side we looked at a third world slum.  As bad and dirty as El Paso is it still must have looked like heaven to those willing risk their lives crossing the “Fence.”

Thanksgiving trailer style

Out of El Paso we floored it to Las Cruses in order to beat the sunset as we both hate being out on the roads after dark.  Our chances of getting lost, frustrated and pissed off goes up geometrically as twilight and evening darkness sets in when commuter traffic is at its most crowded, and most aggressive spit.

We made it up to the surrounding hillside KOA Campground with a view of the night lights of Las Cruses across the Rio Grande and backed by the deep purple mountains.  By the time we backed Airstream in it was dark and the temperature low 60’s, a 24 degree drop from just several hours ago.  It chilled us to the bone.

There was a new airstream next to us and the lady was so excited she wanted to talk.  So freezing my acorns and hugging myself we talked Airstreams.  Jo finally came out and we excused ourselves in order to finish setting up.  Cold.

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving and we are going to cook up the usual albeit at a much smaller “trailer” scale.

Talk around camp of 19 degrees in the morning! But there are crystal stars and a full moon 

Happy Thanksgiving.

Las Cruses full moon Thanksgiving Eve