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Marty - she's talking about you!!!

We finally made it in yesterday.
Got delayed by a couple "adventures".
Denise flew back this morning.
I spent the day sleeping...

Will write in a coupla days.

'Lena

Glad you ladies made it safe and sound, and I cannot wait to hear about the "adventures"!

???

I'm so sorry Jesse and y'all. I've just been buried with getting this company up and running (something about bleeding money seems to keep my attention pretty focussed... ;-).

But no, I have not forgotten you, dear readers. The adventures will go on! (Real soon now... ;-)

'Lena

The Two Gringas Do It Again!

Day 4 -- Sunday 1 February 2004 -- Arizona - New Mexico - Texas

"How the Gringas Get Their Groove Back"

Mile 1774 - Tucson, Arizona

Maybe it was the unremitting pressure of preparing for this trip (and the impending business startup at the other end), maybe it was all the overtime Denise had to put in at her day job to get free for the drive, maybe it was vague expectations based on last October's (more scenic and care-free) drive down, maybe it was the "loss" of the much-anticipated scenic stretch down the Colorado River/Lake Havasu, or maybe it was being forced to pay $100 for a $50 room, and maybe it was all of the above, but in any case Denise and I arrived in our somewhat shabby rooms last night in the foulest of moods.

But Denise is no dummy.

In fifteen years she has learned to know both herself and me and how we are together -- so she wisely forked out double the double-price and got separate rooms for the night. Something about an ounce of prevention being worth a pound of cure...

. . .

As we had planned a slack-day into the schedule, we decided to use part of it to recover this morning: Denise went to visit a friend in the west Tucson suburbs, and I slept in.

By the time we reconvened late-morning, both of us were feeling better. In fact, when the daily "mail call" to Seattle revealed that the truck title still had not arrived, it was almost a relief: we would cruise on down to the tip of Texas and wait, and things would happen as they happened...

. . .

Hwy. 10, a straight shot east: gas in Bowie, AZ; across the Continental Divide near the Pyramid and Cedar Mountains in western New Mexico (interesting formations); a right-turn at Las Cruses as we head south to El Paso where darkness catches up with us and, sadly, we follow the Rio Grand along the edge of Texas with no view beyond the orb of the headlights, turning east with Hwy. 10, away from the river, at Esperanza ("Hope") and make tracks through the evening to Van Horn, where we bed down for the night.

Texas has brought us back into the groove. Tomorrow will find us bunked at the border.

== End of Day 4, Mile 2227, Van Horn, TX ==

[Photos are: 1. The Continental Divide, New Mexico; 2. Heading for Texas.]

___________________________________________
MissLena is Galena Alyson Canada
Her email is themisslena á gmail � com
Her blog is at galenaalysoncanada.blogspot.com

The Two Gringas Do It Again!

Day 5 -- Monday 2 February 2004 -- Texas

"Texas Breathes"

Mile 2227 - Van Horn, Texas

There is a kind of Zen to driving through the undulating scrubland of west Texas.

Unlike the infinite flatness of northwest Texas ("Where Dirt Comes to Die" in the //ambergriscaye.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/ubb/showflat/Main/21746/Number/210064), Hwy. 10 through southwest Texas has a hypnotic rhythm to it, a gentle up and down of live oaks, prickly pear, even water in the washes during wintertime. You begin to appreciate the engineering of the road cuts, the design and placement of the guard rails, the varying textures of pavement. The lines and signs lose their meaning -- like a word repeated over and over until its just a sound, a presence, like breathing. Speed and distance lose their meaning, your existence becomes a kind of bubble of metaphysical stasis, around which flows the undulating scrubland like water over a smooth stone -- just driving...always have been, always will be...destinationless.

. . .

I imagine myself spending my life photographing the wasting flesh and bleaching bones of the old route 10 highway towns; writing down the tattered, half-remembered chapters of the lives of those few relics who yet remain in residence, despite the freeway, which diverted the life-sustaining flow of traffic away from their futures...

. . .

Weird gas-pump numerology: filled 33.7 gallons at Van Horn, having driven 337 miles since the previous fill-up; then filled 32.4 gallons at Junction, TX, after driving exactly 324 miles...ooooh...

. . .

A brief surge of modernity intrudes, as we tunnel under the multilayered interchanges of San Antonio, then are spit out southward, first on 37, then on 281, and it's back to endless scrubland as we fade into a south Texas sunset...

== End of Day 5, Mile 2907, Pharr, TX ==

[Photos are: 1. Undulating west Texas, 2. Tunneling under San Antonio, 3. South Texas Sunset.]

___________________________________________
MissLena is Galena Alyson Canada
Her email is themisslena á gmail � com
Her blog is at galenaalysoncanada.blogspot.com

No great loss not seeing the Rio Grande here in El Paso. Has been BONE DRY for about 5 months! I can walk to it from my house. We took our annual family Christmas card photo standing in the dry riverbed!

Bone dry, huh? Boy, THAT can't be good... 'L

Hello Miss Lena, do hope you had time to stop by Granzella's in Williams to pick up some of the best damn olives this side of the mediterranean! Do you ever pick up hitch hikers? Woodland is not too far from Williams...