El Paso, TX

We left Phoenix this morning about 9 am and arrived here in El Paso about 4:30 California time. We had a great visit with Jeanne and Karie (Gerry's sister and niece). It was just overnight, we'll stop there again on our way home and spend a couple of days with them then. Jeanne wants me to make some stir-fry for dinner one night.

It was pretty warm traveling over to Phoenix. It was way over 100 degrees when we got there about 3:30 yesterday afternoon. We stopped at a WalMart before going to Jeanne's and when we got back to the car, the temp inside the car said it was 111 degrees outside. By the time we got to Jeanne's a few blocks away, it had come down to 107. Its a dry heat so it doesn't seem all that bad. They took us to a really neat place for dinner called Chelsea's. The meals were a little pricey, however really good. I had a spinach salad with grilled chicken strips, slices of apple, candied pecans, red cabbage, onion and a really fantastic dressing. Gerry and Karie had a hamburger and Jeanne had a salad that had shrimp and crab in it. I nibbled on a few of Gerry's fries and they were good too.

We were going to go to Cracker Barrel for breakfast with Jeanne before we left to get back on the road. We decided to stay home and fix something light. I scrambled a couple of eggs for Gerry and fixed us both an English muffin. Jeanne had some cereal. It gave us a little more time to relax and visit. It was already in the 90's at 9 am.

I've been taking pictures as we've driven however have to recharge my camera and download the pictures before I can post any. I'm not sure how any of them came out too since we were moving. This blogging is not working out as I planned so am a little frustrated. It will be fine though. Don't want to get stressed about anything.

We've been stopping at truck stops for potty breaks, they usually have very clean restrooms. We stopped at one in New Mexico, gassed up and had a Subway sandwich. The ladies restroom was pretty nasty, the worst of all the ones we've stopped at so far.

Somewhere in Arizona, a pickup truck passed us and then we changed lanes behind him to get around a big truck. When we did that, a small rock hit the windshield on the driver's side. It is down towards the bottom. :((

I loaded all our CD's on my Mp3 player and we've been playing it rather than bringing the CD's with us. We've had continuous music. I put it on to play "all tracks" so its a variety of music.

We saw a billboard for a BBQ restaurant coming into El Paso and found out it is close by the Comfort Inn we are staying at. We could probably walk over there but will probably drive. It's almost 8 pm local time. Gerry went for a short bike drive and needs to get cleaned up before we go.

We leave tomorrow for Big Spring, TX which is halfway to Ft. Worth. The drive will be more desert. The last time I was through Arizona, New Mexico and Texas was when Denise was 9 months old. Obviously alot has changed in the cities in the last almost 40 years, yet the desert is still the same. Although I paid more attention to the mountains and rock formations along the way. I hope those pictures came out ok.

I will post more later.