and off we go

1st off, i'm not sure how to respond to a post......so i'm creating a new one just to make sure it goes thru.

joe, you nailed me and maps. no wonder it's no surprise i'm in transportation and yes, opening a the map and starting to plan the trip was magical (you really did a great job putting it into words). i was in my realm, calculating miles, driving times and stop off locations (especially people we knew...nothing like a bathroom, shower and a bed every so often) i must confess when i get bored at work i'll pull up mapquest and just gaze, both at the road and the aerial shots and i'm not looking for anything in particular, i'm just entertaining myself.

wow, i had totally forgotten lanny.

as i recall joe and i had decided 10 days from lexington to carrizozo, new mexico would be just right. 1st stop 'land between the lakes' state park at the western end of kentucky. correct me if i'm wrong but as we were inside the park and traveling to a 'campsite' the luggage rack started to come off and i was half way out the window trying to hold it up and screaming for joe to pull over. my memory of this was joe looking at me and saying "i can't stop in the middle of a curve". i was not amused. once stopped we discovered that the rope we had used to hold down the luggage rack was touching the exhuast pipe and of course the heat had burned the rope.....we adjusted the rope and had no futher problems that i remember.

after leaving land between the lakes we somehow ended up in jonesboro, arkansas. why? help me on this one. but....i do remember vividly asking for directions from a local and the response was "go down to where the Dairy Queen used to be and turn xxxx".....now that unto itself is nothing, we drove down the street looking for an old abandoned DQ....could not find one, what we found was a cemet slab and a vacant lot. we discovered the 'jonesboro tornado' had 'removed' the entire structure. i learned to listen to directions with a little more detail and not 'assume' what someone meant.

after jonesboro i remember driving towards texas and spending the night at rest stop on I-30 outside of HOPE,arkansas. yes, we were just miles away from Bill Clinton's birth place 20 years before he became famous.

next stop was galveston,tx......why, not sure, we were headed to austin,tx to spend a night with someone, but who's friend it was i haven't a clue. i remember 3 things that were significate on this day.

1st: while driving thru marshall,tx the odometer broke. from that day on we had no clue how fast we where going or how far we had traveled. this really bothered me in the beginning. when i drive i live to know speed and distance. i was being denied a simple pleasure. but, being resourceful individuals we started to use the mile markers and watch to calculate mph (60 mph is 1 mile in 1 minute) and we figured if we just flowed with traffic we'd be safe.

2nd: when driving in texas on a two lane hwy and someone needs to pass you, just move right and drive on the shoulder for a long as it takes for the vehicle to pass. thus noone has to pull out into oncoming traffic......it was so cool and once we figured it out enjoyed doing it.

3rd: misquotes along the gulf coast in the summer time at night are serious. i thought i might be physcially removed from the vehicle and eaten alive. we had attempted to stay at a rest area along I-10 east of houston, but i could not sleep. we ended up at a gulf station. joe slept i bullshitted with an ex-marine that was maning the overnight shift. he hlep me fix the exhaust pipe by cutting a coke can and using some clamps.

having not slept i got moving early and watched the sun come up over the gulf of mexico just east of galveston. joe drove to austin i slept. i think i remember getting a shower in austin (it had been a few days) but nothing else. we left austin and headed to del rio,tx along the rio grande river west of san antonio. we pasted thru hondo,tx and i can still see the welcome sign " welcome to hondo, this is god's country so don't drive through it like hell" (while living in houston years later i had an opportunity to be in hondo and the signs still there). camping at a koa outside of del rio was uneventful as i recall. next stop was big bend national park. but, inbetween del rio and big bend as the pecos river and a wonderfully built bridge over it....and... just after the bridge was a small exit sign "langtry, home of judge roy bean, law west of the pecos". being in no particular hurry, we stopped and looked at a couple of run down old west building and moved on.
(a few years later a movie came out staring paul newman "the life and times of judge roy bean". i watched with interest having acutally been to langtry,tx and seen the real town). now texas is big and west texas is sand, sun and heat with no breaks. we filled up with gas in marathon,tx prior to heading into big bend national park "last chance for gas" the advertisment said. good thing we did.....there is absolutely nothing in that neck of the woods. we made a very good investment upon entering the park.....we bought a 'pass' that would get you into any national park for 1 year.......and we used it for 'carlsbad,grand canyon, zion, yosemite,yellowstone, and grand teton.. good investment. big bend was so-so i do recall walking to the bathroom at night and remembering the warnings about how the snakes like to come out and night and use the heat off the road for warmth and here i was walking on the road with no flashlight and thinking...this is not smart.......

GOTTA RUN, MORE LATER