Saturday, April 19, 2014

Four Explorers, One Black Truck, 1500 Miles

And we are off! Finally! That adventure I have been in such desperate need of has begun! There is nothing so relaxing as driving with an open road before you, a friendly face beside you and endless possibilities of what you may experience. Sure you have a general destination in mind but anything between point A and point B is fair game.



Our dear friends Pixel and Shazam are heading to Campo, California to embark on their honeymoon adventure hiking the Pacific Crest Trail (Click here to follow them on their adventure!), a 2700 mile stretch that will take them from Mexico through California and into Canada. We are going to miss them while they are gone so we figured what would make a better send off than to drive them to the starting point in time for Kick-Off!

Leaving from Houston on I-10 we embarked upon phase one of our road trip, an 11 hour drive to Roswell, New Mexico. I-10 is an American highway stretching through the Southern states going from the East coast to the West coast. Texas is deceptively large, look at Texas on a map and it doesn't look that much larger than the states surrounding it but at 773 miles wide it dwarfs them. (Considering the US is approximately 3000 miles wide that makes Texas almost a third of its width!)

One of the many fabulous things about driving through Texas in the spring is the wildflowers. Courtesy of Lady Bird Johnson the major highways of Texas were beautified with wildflowers, so now when you drive through Texas in the spring the highways are surrounded by an ocean of red & blue wildflowers. Driving West from Houston (other than the hill country) the land is remarkably flat. You can look out of your window and literally watch the land disappear over the edge of the earth. There is a certain beauty in this that is enhanced by the wildflowers, large ranches and old windmills scattered along the way. As you pass the ranches complete with Texas Longhorns, there is no doubt that you are in Texas!

Houston, San Antonio, Junction. The sea of blue, red and green disappears into the distance with the setting sun and we find ourselves driving into a pitch black sky adorned with shimmering lights. From Junction through Fort Stockton and on to Roswell we drove under a blanket of stars behind spotty clouds as the man in the moon poked his head through a cloud to watch us make our merry way. The lights of far-off cities glowing in the distance, only bright enough to sparkle, look remarkably like the cat-eyes running down the center of the road. Yet, the most brilliant lights come from the drilling rigs scattered throughout the distance. Like bugs to a flame, the lights from the drilling rigs draw you in and you get lost in their beauty. I find myself desperate to drive up and explore one, yet with two oil men in the car happy to be home from the rigs, we were not about to try to get any closer for a better peek.

Finally arriving in Roswell after 13 hours on the road, we are tired and relieved to have made it to our first destination. As we get ready for bed we hope no aliens decide to reappear in hopes of an abduction so we are able to continue on our adventure in the morning.


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