Traveling...

When I launched into the idea of driving from our hill to Tucson and back, my thinking went along the lines of... we've driven 5000 mile loops through Texas, New Mexico, and Arkansas two or three times and have driven across the U.S. each way having a lot of fun. This should be easy.



I seriously overestimated the fun of driving 2500 miles by yourself. It wasn't that it was unfun...it was that those other trips had been with Cyrilee in the car and things are a WHOLE bunch more fun with her along.



I did run across a few interesting items though...



I saw a full sized RV pulling a trailer with what looked to be a full sized school bus on it. Seemed a bit odd.



On the way out of Tucson on Wednesday, I saw three sets of odd vehicle pairings. Just as I got to the edge of Tucson I started passing a mini-pickup with a refrigerator and assorted cardboard boxes in the back...towing a mini-pickup with a refrigerator and assorted cardboard boxes in the back. Then almost immediately I passed two more exact same set ups... three pairs of mini-pickups, one towing the other, with a refrigerator and assorted cardboard boxes in the back of each. Each towing truck had two people in it and the only thing that seemed different was the exact model and color of the trucks and the refrigerators seemed a little different. This pointed out one of the big drawbacks of driving cross country by yourself... no one to take pictures. To do so myself would have turned me into a traffic hazard.



I also managed to solve a problem for our new President... what to do with the terrorist suspects when he closes down Gitmo... turn them over to the senior citizens of Hondo, New Mexico.... let me explain.



When driving from Truth or Consequences, NM to Roswell, NM the shortest distance is to go north on I25 to San Antonio, NM then turn right. After driving an incredibly long distance through incredibly non-changing landscape, about 50 miles out of Roswell you will find Hondo, NM. It seemed like a pleasant little town as I passed through, but nothing of enough interest to make me pause in my journey to Roswell.

About 3 miles out of town I saw a sign that indicated the Hondo Senior Citizens Center was just ahead. At this point my opinion of Hondo dropped a bit. I was thinking, "That's a pretty terrible way to treat your senior citizens...stick them way out of town like they don't matter."

Then, upon passing said center I noticed they had a rodeo arena (with what appeared to be bronco or bull riding chutes) out back behind the center... It's not that the folks in Hondo don't love and honor their senior citizens... the Senior Citizen Center is way out of town because apparently the senior citizens of Hondo are a pretty rowdy bunch. At a time in life when lots of folks are worried about breaking a hip from falling...the senior citizens of Hondo apparently think a Saturday night wouldn't be complete without strapping themselves to the back of a 1600 pound raging hunk of bull flesh. Remind me not to upset any of the elderly from Hondo.

So knowing this about the older generation of Hondo, I started thinking...send the terrorists there and let Grandma and Grandpa whup up on them a bit to straighten them out (this seemed to be a forte from my own grandparents). Of course some ACLU lawyer would probably protest it as cruel and unusual punishment when the grandmothers sent the terrorist out back to cut the switch they were about to be whupped with.

..take care... t