New York, New York!

Thursday June 2nd

 New York buildings
It was fairly a straightforward trip to New York apart from a couple of pirouettes where we lost our bearings completely in the spaghetti junctions. New York effectively has its own congestion tax as you have to pay around $8 to get into Manhattan, whichever bridge/tunnel you use. Not that it does much for the congestion. It took a little while to familiarise ourselves with the aggressive NY driving techniques which are slightly worse than the LA techniques and then about 30 min to drive 4 miles. Mark assured us this is good going.
After a phone call to tell him we were round the corner Mark came down to meet us with a luggage trolley.

Building where Mark's flat is on the 40th floor

View from Mark's flat.
We parked illegally for 10 min outside Mark's building with David sitting in the car and the boot/trunk open while we took the cases up and then drove to Dollar rental to return the car.  Mark advised us that the fine is over $300 if you get caught parking there, as he knew from experience.

 Son Mark 
It seems hard to believe our journey is over. We’ve enjoyed it tremendously, but are looking forward to catching up with friends and family in Scotland. We leave NY Monday evening and should be back home ar Scurdie Ness on the 7th June.

Our home in Scurdie Ness, Scotland.

Thanks for reading this blog, I've enjoyed writing it  and I'd love to have your feedback if you have the time.
Theresa

Martinsburg to Bethlehem, Philadelphia

Wednesday June 1st

Set off for Bethlehem. Our last stop before New York. It looks like we’re going to make it on time from our coast to coast marathon as we only have 90 miles to go. We need to be in New York by 1:00 tomorrow to return the rental car and we could probably have got there tonight but this way we’re avoiding the nightmare of trying to find somewhere to park in NY overnight.

It was really hot again but thunderstorms are expected which should reduce the temperature. NY seems relatively cool if you can believe the temperature charts.

 A moment of mercy. Sculpture depicting soldier who attended to wounded on the opposing side after a huge battle defeat. His own side started firing at him until they realised what he was doing.

We came through Harrisburg today, an important city in Pennsylvania. (It's the capital of the commonwealth; not sure what that means). While there we visited the Museum of the Civil War as it has a reputation for being the least biased of the civil war museums. They told the story well, by following the lives of several different people most of whom ended up dead, but it was very absorbing and we spent longer than we meant to.  Over 600,000 deaths out of a population of around 27 million!

After familiarising ourselves with the civil war, we cheered ourselves up by visiting Chocolate World in Hershey which is close to Harrisburg.

Entrance to Hershey world

 The cows who are delighted that their high quality milk is being used in Hershey chocolate

We did the circuit on the little train, listened to the singing cows and then, as we were leaving, were approached by someone who wanted to recruit us for some market research into Hershey products. This sounded rather attractive so we agreed eagerly and were taken away to a little kiosk and given some chocolate. We had to take a drink of water, a bite out of a cracker biscuit and when we’d swallowed it, eat the chocolate and answer some questions. I had a tiny little sugar-free chocolate wafer but David was given three big chunky chocolate peanut butter bars. No complaints there! As a reward, we were each given a Hershey bar on the way out but it quickly went soft in the heat so we had to eat those too.

Tuesday May 31st

 

 View from Blue Ridge Parkway near Strasburg, Va

Slept late and woke to a really hot day.  Thanks goodness for air-conditioning.  We went for a walk around Lynchburg but were just hopping from one piece of shade to the next so we set off and headed for the Blue Ridge Parkway again as it runs in the direction we wanted to go and is a lot cooler, being high.  Stopped a few times to listen to the birds tweeting, and enjoyed being away from the traffic but were travelling slowly so rejoined the I85.

 Stone soup cafe

We had left without breakfast as it was too hot to eat but by 2:30 we were getting hungry so pulled off at Waynesboro to find something to eat, but no sign of the Golden arches or our other usual classy dining joints. After circling a few times and ignoring the pleas of the GPS to return to the freeway, we came across the Stone soup café/2nd hand bookshop which sounded pretty good.  The food was excellent and we were encouraged to browse the bookshelves while eating, which was a bit of unusual.

Historical map of Edinburg, Virginia

After that, we thundered along to Martinsburg but when we saw that Edinburg was on the way, we had to stop and investigate.  It was a very small place (pop 813), the temperature was 94oF and one of the main streets was Printz street (Aaargh!). So similar, but so different.

Boone NC to Lynchburg VA

Monday May 30th

 View from Blue Ridge Parkway
We thought we’d try the scenic route today so found the Blue Ridge Parkway which extends 479 miles along the ridge of the Appalachians. It was worth the effort as the views were great (awesome as they say here) and the area around the road was full of flowering shrubs – azaleas and rhododendrons. It was a single carriageway and had a 45 mph limit so we stayed on it for about 30 miles before crossing to the Interstate 81.

We hadn’t travelled more than a few miles when we came across bad congestion – stop start traffic moving very slowly. We saw several vehicles making their escape by reversing up the on-ramp and considered joining them but decided to be law-abiding instead – a big mistake.

There were notices saying that the I85 was closed further down and that the traffic was being guided along a detour. As soon as we could, we escaped down a side road and, using Google maps on my iPod, I found an alternative route along state highway 675. On reflection, I think lower numbers are better for State highways. All went well for the first few miles and it was good to get moving again. But then the road became very narrow and unpaved.

 State highway 645
It was still very scenic but we were a little unnerved when we found we would have to ford a stream that looked quite deep. I paddled across first and found the shallowest route and David followed with the car. On the other side we met a couple in a 4x4 coming the opposite way, so thought we’d better find out what the road was like. They told us it got a lot worse; there were 7 fords altogether and the first was the shallowest. Also, that the pot-holes got so large, a car like ours could disappear. This was not good news so they persuaded us to turn around and invited us to their place for a glass of iced tea before we continued our journey.

 Ford in a Ford
Tony and Jennifer have a lovely home, set in 3 acres of grassland and on a housing estate where all the homes have 3 acres of grassland. We had a good chat before we returned to join the traffic detour. It was a very long trip and we eventually arrived at our destination in Lynchburg, VA, at around 9 pm.
Someone told us that the reason the I81 was closed was that one of the local Sheriffs had shot and killed his wife on that road, earlier in the day.

Into the Appalachians

Sunday May 29th

 Some of the previous winners from Nascar races with all the dents knocked out.
Investigated the Nascar meeting in Charlotte, North Carolina where they had a speedway race.It was the Coca cola 600 which I think means that they whizz round the track 600 times.  Luckily we didn't have time for this. so we went to the Nascar Hall of fame which David found very interesting. There was a video about the history of Nascar which appears to be highly regulated stock-car racing. We learnt that impoverished people in the Appalachians took to selling moonshine to make money during the depression. They tended to deliver it at night and the cops would chase them. If they had a fast car, they could get away so they modified their cars to get more power out of them. After a while, they would compare cars by racing them as there wasn’t a lot of entertainment in the mountains and so Nascar was born.

David and some car enthusiast friends at Nascar.  They didn't talk much.
In the late afternoon we headed for the mountains and stayed overnight at Boone, named for Daniel Boone. It was a lot cooler and quite different from the lowlands. There seemed to be a lot of folk from the big cities here – mostly genteel wealthy people and a lot of twee countrified stuff but very picturesque. Hope to take the scenic route to Virginia tomorrow.

We passed through a town called Blowing Rock. Not far from the town is a cliff where you can throw things over and the updraft brings them back. The posters feature a parent throwing a child over but I think the phenomenon is restricted to lighter objects. Tissue handkerchiefs and so on. Unfortunately, the area was closed when we passed through.

 Landscaped gardens at Blowing Rock
Just heard on the news that there was a shooting in uptown Charlotte last night. One guy killed and another wounded. Just near where we were this morning.

The Carolinas

false false EN-GB JA X-NONE

Saturday May 28^th

Slow to get moving this morning.  We eventually got away about 11 at chucking out time and set off on the road north to Charlotte, North Carolina.  We stopped at Greenville and explored quite a lot of the town while looking for the downtown part.  A problem was that we had keyed in “Main St” to the GPS and as it turned out there were several main streets.  The one we arrived at first was in the country to our surprise.

Park in Greenville Main st.

When we did find the correct Main Street, it turned out to be pedestrianized with a lovely park and waterfall at one end of it.  There were also lots of trees giving shade from the hot sun. (still around 28oC but less humid than the gulf coast).  Being Saturday, there were hordes of people about.  We discovered also that it’s a holiday weekend with Memorial day on Monday which is the equivalent of Remembrance day in the UK, so there is a bit of pressure on the motel rooms.

 Waterfall in Greenville Main St.

Our evening was marred a little by David losing his credit card in a shop.  He was making lots of phone calls about lawn-mower parts and he thinks (but isn't sure) he left it on a counter while he went to get something.  Anyway it has disappeared.  There were other people in the shop so someone could have picked it up.  After spending about an hour retracing steps. we cancelled it  from the shop with the help of the phone and my iPad to get on the internet and get the visa card number.  Luckily we have other credit cards!

Off to the Appalachians tomorrow where the hill-billies live. 

Montgomery, Alabama to Commerce, Georgia

Friday May 27th

 The road to Columbus.  The road is edged with forest just like the day before.

Storms holding off so headed north for Columbus which was a little off our track. We passed through the State line into Georgia on the way, so we are now, finally on East coast time. Columbus had a Space centre financed by Coca Cola Inc. which was very entertaining as it was really set up for kids. There was hardly anyone else there and when it was time for the movies, we were the only people in a huge movie theatre. It seems it is the quiet period in between the school trips and the summer camps.

 Space Centre in sunny Columbus
Unfortunately we spent too much time there so there wasn’t much time to look around Atlanta, home of Martin Luther King and the place that was burnt to the ground by General Sherman in the American Civil war. Margaret Mitchell who wrote “Gone with the Wind” lived in Atlanta and they have made her house into a museum. Unfortunately it was a quarter to five when we arrived in Atlanta so we were a bit too late for most of the museums.

 Unidentified blossom that we see a lot of.
We decided we would visit Railway City, which is a novel redevelopment of the Inner city of Atlanta where a town has been built for railway commuters so that they can live close to the station and not have to travel there. A city within a city they say. It sounded interesting and appealed in that it was unlikely to shut at 5. We programmed the address into the GPS but every time we got close, a street was blocked off or we weren’t allowed to do a right or left turn. We circled round several times getting more and more frustrated, until David saw a solution, and we dived across the road. Unfortunately the solution involved driving on the left side of the road for a bit– not the side that they’re used to here. In his excitement, he’d forgotten that we’re not in the UK. Luckily the road had been momentarily clear, but there were many cars pawing the road at a nearby set of lights. You could almost hear the revs dropping and see the drivers heads raised in astonishment. But we reached our destination, so it was a good thing really.

After that, railway city was an anti-climax and didn’t look too different from the rest of the city. We could have been in the wrong part of course, but we spotted Ikea and being hot and thirsty, called in for a cool glass of Lingon juice and some Swedish meatballs. Just like home really.

North through Alabama

Thursday May 26^th

Got up bright and early to make the last rental car change.  This was a brilliant one - $39 for a week, thanks to Elise finding us the 1$ a day deal with Dollar rental car.  By the time they added on tax etc. it came to a little more but still – A Bargain!  We can only take it for a week though, so we have to be in NY by the 2nd June.

Road between Mobile and Alabama. Forested 4-lane highway all the way.

We were also pleased to find that both the drop-off and the pick-up were from the airport, so, extra convenient.  Our latest acquisition is a Ford Fusion which gives us a greater presence on the road than our previous micro cars.

Dire weather warnings all day so we raced to Montgomery ahead of the thunderstorms but they caught up with us in the end.  However, none of the fabled golf-ball hailstones although I overheard someone saying she’d caught some. 

The weather cleared up in the evening so we had a look around Montgomery which seems a very affluent place with nice parks.   Montgomery is the capital city of Alabama.

 1000 miles to go! 

The Ku Klux Klan is strong in Alabama which was of the last states to enfranchise the African American population.  To be fair, you needed to be able to pay the poll tax and pass a literacy test to vote so that eliminated many white folk also. But he African Americans were hardest hit as there were a lot of exemptions for white people.  This injustice was only rectified in 1965 with the voting rights act.  Some say there is still evidence of racial discrimination in the South in that approximately one third of all young African American men are in jail, on parole or probation.  The number of prison inmates has been increasing in the USA whereas in other western countries, it has changed little.  However, there are many African American high achievers also so maybe things are changing slowly.

The road to Mobile

May 25^th

 Tourist in Old pharmacy in New Orleans
Spent some time in New Orleans browsing around the French quarter and enjoying the sunshine and atmosphere.  We visited a pharmacy museum; the French are proud of the fact that Pharmacy was widely practiced in New Orleans before other States.  Part of the reason is that in the early days, there was a lot of disease in Louisiana because of the mosquitoes, swamps and humidity.  Yellow fever outbreaks were particularly bad.  Some references to voodoo here because of the early association with Haiti - another French colony.

Paddle  steamer awaiting passengers in New Orleans
The road from New Orleans took us over Lake Pontrachain , which is really a large bay, and then we drove around the coast to Mobile.  The beaches are beautiful with very light coloured sand and almost no people about.  We noticed some evidence of hurricane damage as some houses have not been repaired yet but the majority are looking good. People told us that most of the coastal houses between New Orleans and Bilroxi have had to be rebuilt.  We noticed that they were all on very high stilts, presumably because of the likelihood of flooding. Or alligators.

 David on the beach near Biloxi, Gulf of Mexico.
There is a little bit of black sand polluting the light sand and it is claimed that this is a result of the BP spill.  We did hear that the people have done very well out of the compensation paid by BP and there were lots of shrimp boats out in the bay.  It would be nice to come back here and stay for longer.  It’s still hot and humid but we head north tomorrow after our final car exchange, so we should be cooling down soon.  Lots of tornado warnings.  And the giant hailstones are after us again.......

New Orleans!

Drowning trees on the edge of the Mississippi

Tuesday May 24^th

Set out on the road to New Orleans with a little trepidation as we’d been hearing lots of scare stories about the floods from the Mississippi. However the weather service at http://water.weather.gov/ahps/ reported that while there was some flooding at Baton Rouge, there was very little at New Orleans.

The road ran across swamps for a lot of miles and was built up on concrete posts like a low bridge.  The carriageways were separated and for a lot of the time you could see water between them.

Floods seen from the road
Stopped off in Baton Rouge for a coffee in a dilapidated but very popular French café and had a good look at the Mississippi over the levees.  It certainly moved fast and was very wide and made me think of Tom Sawyer and his adventures on the raft.  It was pretty warm at 32oC so we didn’t stay out in the heat for long, got back in the car and travelled to Sorrento to have a look at a Cajun village, which again was dilapidated. 

We stopped for coffee and lunch in the village and got chatting to a local called Michael Johnson who was very interesting.  One of four brothers, his family were very poor as they’d spent all their money on healthcare for another son who had eventually died.  As a result they lived in a trailer with all the poor folk who were all black and when they started de-segregation in the late 60’s he was one of the few white folk who felt perfectly at ease with blacks which was a big asset.  Also, the black folk were at ease with him. So he ended up running things at school that involved both groups of kids. Without any qualifications, he started work as a policeman and then joined Total petroleum and spent a lot of his life in Africa, South America, China and even Aberdeen at one point.  Then he got fed up with travelling and now works for Verizon maintaining their networks.  Like a lot of folk he’s fed up with Obama who has just poured billions of investment into the oil industry in South America while letting the oil Industry in Louisiana run down.  He says it’s because Louisiana didn’t support Obama in the last election.  American politics seem in as bad a state as UK politics. 

The reason for staying away from the drains!
We went to a very interesting cafe in the evening called Mantino's in Canal Street for authentic local food.  We had to wait ages for a table as there were no reservations and it was very popular but the food was great.  Hope to see more of New Orleans tomorrow before we head for Mobile, Alabama.

Louisiana

Monday May 23^rd

Coming into Houston on the I10

Did the big rental car swap in Houston and set off in our near new Nissan Versa for Jennings in Louisiana.  Stopped on the way at Beaumont and drove downtown to the Museum of Energy which has a very good interactive display on the oil industry.  We’d forgotten that it’s Monday – the day that all museums close, so we transferred our interest to the art gallery next door. Which was open but they had no other patrons  The security man followed us all the way around and when we left said that he would escort us to our car.  We must have looked surprised so he told us that there are a lot of homeless people in the area and he wanted to make sure we were safe.   Given that downtown was deserted – the art gallery was in the middle of a landscaped area where you could see for miles and there was no-one in sight and there weren’t even any bushes to hide behind as it was all grassy, this all seemed a little strange.  We couldn’t decide if he was just bored or if he thought we were going to fill our pockets with art works on the way out.

Artwork made out of little pieces of stick

Shortly after that we crossed the state boundary into Louisiana.  I’ve been looking out for bayoux as I wasn’t sure what they were. but they appear to be areas of sluggish green water with overhanging vegetation.

We were saddened to hear of the death of Fay, Gordon’s wife in Laguna Niguel (LA) but it was great that we were able to visit her when we were there.

In the evening, we had a Cajun dinner with Margaritas (2 for the price of 1!) and gumbo.  Gumbo was a kind of gravy with shrimps in and we put it on rice  (lots of rice fields around here) and it was very yummy. 

The people seem rather old fashioned here.  I notice elderly ladies with their white hair in a bun and wire rimmed glasses – the caricature of an American granny in a rocking chair,  People wear flowery dresses and everyone says “Maam and Sir” all the time – even a little kid in the swimming pool kept calling me Maam, which I found slightly irritating but they probably consider to be courteous..  New Orleans tomorrow!

Houston-Baytown

Closeup of backyard oil pump

Sunday May 22^nd

In the deep South.  Everyone is in Church or at the shopping malls.  There are an incredible number of churches around here.  Early on it was Baptists and Catholics but now they seem to be Baptists and Methodists and other unusual sects. We were in a department store yesterday that was playing hymns, even though it wasn’t a religious shop (arts and crafts).

Passed through Huntsville en route, which is where they have their execution unit.  There is a museum there where they exhibit an electric chair that used to be used for the executions.  It is known a s "ole fryer" locally.  Much more humane these days as the baddies get lethal injections.

We intended to stay in Houston but it turned out that the hotel we had booked was 20 miles outside Houston.  Houston is a bunch of glass skyscrapers and one of the richest cities in the US.  It was growing very slowly until the invention of air conditioning, which facilitated a population explosion and now Houston is the hub of the energy industry.  There are lots of canals and deep drains and the average rainfall is 56 inches, but surprisingly, the houses still don’t have guttering.

 Predecessor of the North sea oil-rigs?
We’re keeping an eye on the floods in the Mississippi, but as far as we can tell, there aren’t problems with crossing it.  And we have just heard of the tornado in Joplin, Missouri.  At least all seems quiet on the hurricane front.

Off to Louisiana tomorrow after changing rental cars.  I shall be sorry to leave Texas as I like the kind of cheeky arrogance that the people have.  They know that they are braver, stronger, and richer than other Americans.  Saw a wooden plaque for sale that read “Its hard to be humble when you’re a Texan”.  Still, Louisiana should be fun.  Lots of swamps and mosquitos the size of elephants I hear.

Around Dallas

 The Heart Attack grill in Dallas.  The notice says "over 350lbs? eat for free!"  They have double and triple bypass hamburgers on the menu.  Surprisingly popular.

David in downtown Dallas.

Saturday May 21^st

Set off on the road for Houston but stopped by Dallas on the way.  Dallas was very impressive with its massive glass buildings and we spent some time in the 6^th floor museum which contains a detailed record of the day that JFK was shot.  There is a mock up of the snipers nest and museum operates from the floor where the murder was carried out.  The evidence against Lee Harvey Oswald is that his fingerprints were on the boxes in the snipers nest – if he worked there, this wouldn’t be surprising.  His palm print allegedly was found on the rifle.  Palm prints are less reliable than fingerprints.  Other evidence is a photograph of Lee Harvey Oswald holding a rifle that was the same as the murder weapon.  Oswald claimed that the photo was a forgery and that someone had put his head onto the body of someone else.  He was feeling guilty because when a cop tried to question him as he was walking near the crime scene, he shot at the cop.  A half eaten sandwich was found at the crime scene but unfortunately DNA profiling wasn’t yet invented.  Oswald was known to have Soviet sympathies and to have taken a pot-shot at an army general (and missed) but the proof that he shot Kennedy seems inconclusive.  He wasn’t even a particularly good shot with a rifle.  Anyway, it was a long time ago now.

Stopped at Buffalo for the night.  It is a pleasant village on the road to Houston.  We have to be in Houston on Monday to swap rental cars again as our $5/day deal (found by Elise, in NY) from Phoenix only extends as far as Texas.  We’ll pick up another cheap deal in Mobile, Alabama that will take us to NY.

Hot and sticky today. 30oC and 80% humidity.  I guess that’s the Southern climate.  Gloomy and overcast too – we’ve got used to endless sunshine!

Fort Worth, Tx

 Trying to stay on the bull for 8 secs.

Evening in Fort Worth


Friday May 20^th

We woke up to a crackling noise and flashing light which appeared to be coming from the air conditioner under the window.  Having had experience of dodgy electrics in Pakistan, David dashed over to turn it off but the noise and flashing didn’t stop. He opened the curtain to see lightning and heavy rain/hailstones hitting the window.  As the houses here don’t have gutters, there was no protection for the windows.

The locals were happy to see the rain, mostly because they didn’t have to water their gardens when they got home, but warned us of the perils of giant hailstones, sometimes as big as apples (they claim).  The manager of the hotel showed us photos of the damage done to his roof last year by hailstones and warned us that if we encounter them, we shouldn’t get out of the car but drive under a bridge if possible to avoid damage to the car.  Life is full of hazards! 

Stopped for a coffee at McD’s and got talking to the manager who lived in Fort Worth and told us to visit an area called the stockyards where they hold a Rodeo on Friday nights..  We did and thoroughly enjoyed it.  The riders had to stay on the bull for 8 seconds but very few of them managed it.  There was some excellent lasso-ing of cattle and rope tricks, but the bull riding was most exciting.

The Texans seem to have a very strong State identity and are very keen to be seen as cowboys and girls.  Also very friendly and chatty. We all stood up while a girl rode around the ring with ‘Old Glory’, the American flag, while the music of the Star Spangled Banner played ( Oh say can you see….).  Very patriotic.

Lubbock to Abilene

 Oil pumps on Texan farm

 Progress so far.
Thursday 19^th

While surveying the breakfast offerings I came across some white paste.  I stood trying to work out whether it was waffle batter or porridge (seemed unlikely in Texas but it did have little flecks in it).  The breakfast boss came along and I asked her what it was. “Gravy’ she said, beaming with pride. “Er, gravy for what?” I asked.  “Gravy for them there biscuits” she said pointing to some scones. “Ain’t you never had biscuits and gravy?”  “Would you like to try some? They’s delicious.”  And so I was trapped into one of the most disgusting breakfasts I’ve ever eaten.  Lots of wet flour.  Give me a crisp cornflake floating in milk, any day.

Before we left Lubbock, we visited the windmill museum in the north part of the town.  Texas appears to have two major problems – the wind and the lack of water but the soil here is very fertile (or fertl as they say here – rhymes with turtle) . We were given a tour by the enthusiastic proprietor who ran us through the history of windmills – from the flour grinding sort that need constant adjustment by the miller to those used on the Australian ranches for pumping water that turned themselves into the wind and turn away from the wind when too windy to those used for pumping oil and later generating electricity.

Some farms don’t appear to grow anything but are just covered with nodding oil pumps that creak away on their own.  The oil is collected into tanks and then taken away to the refinery, just like a milk tanker collecting the milk on a dairy farm.

Those who don’t have oil grow cotton and sweet corn but mainly cotton.  Texas is a young state, having only been settled in the 1880s.  It feels very wealthy and spacious with lots of new buildings and gigantic carparks.  People tend to drive utes and have difficulty in understanding us so we have to speak slowly like they do.

In the evening we surveyed to local shopping mall and found a stall selling “ice-cream of the future” which sounded interesting.  We didn’t recognise it at first as it was in little balls about 3-6 mm across like ball bearings.  The guy poured it into a container for us.  I asked him what the advantages are of ice cream in this form and he said he didn’t know, he just worked there.  It was OK.  I suspect it won’t catch on. (Market research of 2).

New Mexico to Texas

Wednesday 18^th

 Mock up of the alien autopsy.  Suspiciously human form of 'alien'

Upper New Mexico landscape.  Very dry and flat but some pastureland.

Left Ruidoso and headed for Roswell, site of alleged UFO landing in 1947.  No hard evidence but much evidence that the air-force tried to cover something up that happened then.  Apparently there is no freedom of information act in the USA otherwise it could be sorted out.  Evidence that a group of archaeologists recently carried out a painstaking dig there and the only corroborating evidence they could find was that of something making a very hard impact on the earth at the site.

Bits of very light metal and plastic were found and reported by lots of unrelated people but strangely, not even a trace is left today for analysis.  Also the aliens reported seemed more like short humans than an alien life form.  Maybe the air-force were doing something they shouldn’t have.

The US air-force has a current policy to conceal any evidence of alien landing and standing orders relating to collection of evidence and secrecy.  The rationale is that it would upset earthlings (other than the air-force presumably).

Crossed the border into Texas and we were impressed by the size of the ploughed fields which are as far as the eye can see.  The fields are very dry and the wind whips up the dust all the time and it gets in your eyes and hair.

Up into the New Mexico Mountains

 Gypsum dunes cover over 200 sq miles of New Mexico

Evening primrose colonizing  gypsum dune.

Tuesday May 17^th

We debated for a long time whether to take the southern or the northern route to Houston. The southern route is shorter but takes us through El Paso.  El Paso is the US part of Juarez which is currently listed as the most dangerous place in Mexico with lots of murders each week.  Something to do with the drug cartels I believe.  We could probably whizz through El Paso fairly fast before we acquired any bandit hitch-hikers but the road skirts the Mexican border for about 30 miles.  There must be a lot of illegals around as we've been stopped twice by the border police.

On the other hand, the Northern route takes us up into the mountains and is about 100 miles longer but looks more interesting.

Northern Route it is.

Passed through Las Cruces, named because of the people killed there by a) Apaches, b) Spanish c) Mexicans.  Crosses were put on their graves.  Later we visited the White sands National Park.  The white sands are 99% gypsum (CaSO4.2H2O), also known as alabaster or plaster of Paris in its dehydrated form.  There is a high content in the rocks of the surrounding mountains and wind erosion and lack of rain has meant that has accumulated in the valleys in dunes of sand-sized particles. It doesn’t often pile up like this because it’s water-soluble so there aren’t many gypsum sand dunes in the world. It was rather lovely and, unlike sand, was cool to walk on with bare feet.  Animals and plants that live there have become paler and developed long roots respectively.  Yuccas get buried in the sand but can grow their stalks quickly to photosynthesise.

Arrived in Ruidoso in the evening.  It’s at around 7000 ft and considerably cooler than down in the plains.  We’re away from all the dust too; the dust resembles the haar in that it blocks out the sun.  Had a very nice Mexican meal – we’ve thought about it before but the restaurants didn’t look very inviting with their identity graffitied on the outside wall eg "real mexican food".  Road-kill on the menu seemed a possibility.  However, the one we went to this evening was recommended and very tasty although the portions were huge.  Luckily David was hungry so we didn’t need the doggie bag.

Into New Mexico

 ? Dust storm coming.

 Main st, Tombstone.  Not too many tourists!

Landscape around Lordsburg.  Black dots are cattle.

Monday May 16^th

Left Tucson, heading for Lordsburg, New Mexico.  On the way we detoured to Tombstone, a town that is allegedly unchanged since its silver/gold boomtown days.  The population was around 18,000 in 1882 but is now around 2000.  The locals dress the part and we witnessed a shoot-out near the OK Corral.  Have to say the acting wasn’t that good but it was all good fun.  It was a bit cooler at 30oC which made a difference.

Headed for Lordsburg, a town of no consequence but with lots of hotels and close to the Interstate10.  The landscape is looking a little more fertile although the locals say they can’t remember when it last rained here.  We got a bit excited when we saw a cloud in the sky and wondered if it was a giant dust storm as there are frequent notices warning about them.  The notices say that visibility can be reduced to zero and to pull of the carriageway before you stop.  That sounds sensible, so long as you know where the carriageway is.

Luckily the road skirted around it so we didn’t have to find out.

Ostrich farm near Tucson

Sunday May 15^th

Set out for Tucson quite early having experienced a “Club” upgrade at the Sheraton in Phoenix which was fun.  On the way to Tucson, stopped at an Ostrich farm which was very interesting.  We bought food to feed the ostriches having been warned that they bite.  I resorted to throwing the food at them. They were quite good at catching it, but David was braver.  Apparently they have no teeth but very hard gums and go for rings or other jewellery.  The woman next to me got bitten.

We went on a farm tour in a monster truck which was fun as the driver was a bit of a maniac and enjoyed going fast over bumps and doing wheelies.  Luckily health and safety didn’t seem to be an issue.

We learnt that there are 23 different species of rattlesnake in Arizona; all of them pretty nasty.  They say that if you hear the rattle, you’re about to step on it as the rattle is to warn you.  At that point you’re within striking distance. So you freeze, locate it and then move slowly away from it.  Backwards.  Hope we never have to put these pearls to the test!