Life’s a Traveling Circus
Life’s a Traveling Circus
Sept 25, 2014
Well, howdy, y’all! We survived our move from Northern California to Austin, Texas; I think for Mike and I both, this is the first time ever that we’ve actually chosen to make a life instead of letting life make us.
Four days driving, straight through, over eighteen hundred miles; stopped for one night in Tucson where they were preparing for monsoon rains and flash flooding (!) the next two days from Hurricane Odile that blistered through Northern Mexico. We were lucky enough to leave early the next morning and outran the remnants of it until just as we got into Austin, then we unloaded the U-Haul in pouring rain. I think our dog Bayley believed the rest of her life was going to be spent in the backseat of the car, with five minutes or so every few hours sniffing the rest-area smells along Interstate 10. She was great; I was very relieved not to have to sedate her, and it’s a lot nicer than traveling with kids who ask every ten minutes “are we there yet?”
On the road between Phoenix and Tucson (somewhere in the vicinity of those mountains is the border with Mexico)
I rode most of the time in the truck with my son which was really nice, since when we visit I don’t get much of a chance to spend time alone with him. I have the two most awesome children God ever created. I was banished from riding in the car with Mike; I have a tendency to make him a nervous wreck by grabbing onto anything available when we get into traffic, bad weather, more than two or three other cars on the road, weird noises emanating from vehicles, you name it. It’s those control issues of mine. It makes him crazy. So for company he had Bayley and two baby turtles that the kids’ California landlord gave us to bring to the grandkids.
Everyone we talked to about the route said Interstate 10 was probably the best, but all desert; I expected something like the Sahara (sand and a cactus here and there). Southern Arizona was pretty, it at least had mountains and, on past Tucson some pretty cool rock formations.
Southern New Mexico? Pah! Pink sand, sagebrush, and 6 or 7 cows every few thousand acres. Flat. Borrrrrrring. Didn’t take any pictures. Jesse said he’d heard that southwestern Texas was REALLY empty, boring desert, but surprise . .
Southwest Texas past the town of Van Horn
it’s green, rolling hills, but it is EMPTY. We were trying to figure out where the King Ranch was and if we were going through it. I believe it’s the largest privately-owned tract of land in the U.S., something like 725 million acres, and it’s currently for sale. We shared the Cheez-Its, and hidden in the blue bag, I’m ashamed to say, are Oreos. Those were mine. However, we did arrive at our destination with most of them still uneaten.
Chicken!
It’s actually a truck being towed; after more than 1,800 miles you have to do something to amuse yourself!
