Christmas trip

For Christmas, my sisters, brother-in-law and I all met up in San Angelo to spend time with my mom.  As mentioned in my Thanksgiving post, the drive for me is long and, at times, rather boring.

The trip to San Angelo was rather unusual this time.  I called ahead and checked on the condition of the roads.  The recording said they were fine.  The recording did not mention the foggy conditions that were pretty much in place until I got to Roswell, NM.  Sometimes you could see several hundred yards to a mile.  That's unusual for the country I was driving through where you can normally see for several miles in all directions.  In Lincoln County, NM the fog was especially heavy.  Not much fun to drive in.  Here's a picture of when conditions were foggy but not too bad.

Normally you could see for at least 5 to 10 miles -- at least.

All the fog plus temperatures around freezing put a frost on the vegetation.  Just north of Vaughn, NM, I spotted a couple of trees.  I pulled over to take a photo.  When I rolled down my car window, it sounded like there was a light rain.  It turns out I had stopped about the time that the temps got just above freezing and it was the sound of frost sliding off branches and plopping on the ground.  Here's one of the trees.

Just north of Vaughn is a very small town called Encino.  Here's a sad little house.  I always wonder what it's history was and why it looks like this now.

On the trip to San Angelo I was very glad I had finished all my shopping.  One of the towns I went through was LaMesa, TX and the strip center with WalMart was PACKED.  Ditto in Big Spring, TX.

Between LaMesa and Big Spring I almost ran off the road when I spotted what I thought was a full-grown, real, live reindeer.  I checked again on the way home and decided (due to the other animals in the pasture) that it was probably an elk instead.  I think the ranch it was located on hosts hunters for a living.

Christmas was nice and so was the drive home.  It was sunny and windy and a bit chilly.  As I got to Brownfield I noticed several long ribbons of geese headed in an easterly direction.  Not sure why and where they were going, but they were pretty to look at.  Also spotted on the drive home was a solitary hawk perched in the only tree for several miles.

It's good to be home.

Papillon

Thanksgiving Visit

I'm spending Thanksgiving with my mom.  She used to come & visit me, but thanks to a number of things including increasing frailty as she gets older, I've been visiting her for the past several years.

The problem is that there is no easy way to get from the Albuquerque area to San Angelo, TX.  You can fly to San Angelo, if you don't mind spending hours & hours in airports during various layovers in Houston or Dallas.  Or you can fly to Midland, rent a car & drive for a couple of hours.  Unfortunately, what used to be a late afternoon flight was moved by Southwest to a mid-evening flight - leaving the traveler to drive the couple of hours in the dark (literally and sometimes figuratively).

Thanks to my getting a new(er) car earlier this year to replace my 20 year old truck, I've been driving over the hills and through the prairies - for about 9 to 10 hours.  Which is what I did yesterday.

At first it's fun to see the scenery change.  The evergreen trees in the Sandias changing to the evergreen shrubs changing to the grass punctuated at first by lots of cholla (cactus) to occasional cholla to very little cholla and mostly grass.  However, after about 5 hours, it starts to get VERY old.  This photo was taken in Lincoln County, NM - looking west from the highway.

I was glad I was doing the speed limit when I drove through Vaughn.  By the side of the road sat the police.  In a pickup truck.  And not just ANY pickup truck.  Imagine said pickup with a kick-ass paint scheme of blue and black.  Plus the fact it was a pickup that apparently had been taking steroids for a considerable period of time because it was very big and very intimidating.  The windows were tinted so I couldn't see if the occupant matched the truck for size & intimidation. 

I keep meaning to stop in Vaughn.  As I've driven through I've noticed a diner - one of those old-fashioned kind with lots of chrome on the outside.  It looks very 1950's.  I may stop on the way back to Albuquerque for a snack.  I'll keep you posted if I do.

Happy Thanksgiving!
Papillon