I Messed with Texas.

Road Trip Day Two

Miles Driven Today: 776
Miles Driven Total: 1376

We sat in the living room with our giant mugs of coffee, bacon and gluten free toast and talked about the house remodel like proper thirty-somethings. I was driving to Santa Fe, New Mexico today and had to get an early start. I packed up the car after breakfast. I had not organized the trunk very well and basically just shoved everything back in. We said our teary good-byes over and over again. We promised to be better at getting together and to plan a girls weekend in the city. Preferably New York or San Francisco in our dreams. Our budgets may choose other cities.

I don’t know if you’ve heard this before, but Texas is BIG. I mentally prepared myself that I would be driving through Texas all damn day long. I had 4 or 5 routes offered to me on my phone. Unfortunately, none avoided Dallas without serious detours.  So I choose one that only skimmed the outskirts of Dallas…well…3 accidents, 1 detour through (I kid you not) a dirt road, 50% to 99% of the highway was under construction, and at one point people were walking on the side of the Interstate faster than I was driving. C’est la vie!

Observations in Texas: Texas Highway Patrol wear cowboy hats.

There are dead snakes on the road.

And when you have been holding it for hours and jump out of the car at the next rest stop, you will be greeted by this friendly sign.

Texas laughs at other cushy rest stops that don't include venomous predators. Their rest stops are for a more bad ass extreme traveler. 

They should change the sign to, "You better have your boots on!".  The thought of just peeing into a container in the car will cross your mind.

Being a native Hawaiian, my dog Patrick loved driving through Texas. He basically alternated sunning in different parts of the car and across my lap all day long. Then he’d look like he was awaking from a coma and timidly begged for water by smacking his dry mouth.

The picturesque moment was the cotton fields. They were quite lovely and the sky was so blue.

As the sun was going down, I drove through some one horse towns that time forgot. Followed by a lot of farmland then lo and behold I swear I was driving through the same town again. By the third deja vu I thought perhaps I’d wandered into the Twilight Zone. In case you wondered where that was exactly, its in Texas. This was also about the time the darker parts of The Girl on the Train, describing the middle of nowhere town during the Megan and Mac relationship, came though my speakers.
It was getting a little too real.

I made sure the doors were locked and put on some pop music.

I made up my mind when I was a young girl
I've been given this one world
I won't worry it away
But now and again I lose sight of the good life
I get stuck in a low light
But then Love comes in

How far do I have to go to get to you
Many the miles
Many the miles – Sara Bareilles

 Back into the throws of The Girl on the Train got me through Amarillo. It looked the same as I remember it as a kid, when we drove though late at night during a family trip to Colorado. But I remember something else about this area too. What was it I thought, just as the smell became to ripen throughout my car like toxic gas. Ohhhh yeah. The wind kicked it up a notch feeling like you were driving through thick fog and smelled like dead animals dripping in shit, that someone egged and left out in the hot sun near a sewer. It feels like you are about to die from a smell. Thanks Tyson! Then its over, and the heavens open up to let you know you made it to the other side. It was dark when I went over the border of Texas into New Mexico. A picture of more stars then you ever thought were possible to exist in one view.  Nothing compares to a desert sky.

I was so engrossed by the intense ending of my audio book that I missed the exit to Santa Fe. Travel note…do not miss your exits while visiting the desert. The next exit that let me turn around was 40 miles away.  Que sera sera!

I pulled into our AirBnb after 11pm, and I was very appreciative my host had been so flexible with my arrival time. When I emerged from the car, my body went into shock by the temperature change.  My Texas outfit consisting of a t-shirt, shorts and sandals was not covering enough of my now goose bump covered skin. I quickly got my sweater, pj pants and boots out of the trunk. Patrick and I walked to the private back entrance of our room. It was a nicely made up room behind an art studio. There was a coffee maker, desk, bathroom and the most comfortable bed, which was all I really cared about besides the WiFi. She personalized a little sign outside the door.

We fell asleep almost as soon as our heads hit the pillow. 

I’ll explore you in the morning Santa Fe. I messed with Texas and I’m exhausted.