1) Greg and I love the desert so we found the
landscapes in West Texas fascinating and dramatic. I will post a couple photos. What do you think? I know people who believe that if there isn’t
water (preferably the ocean) within driving distance, it’s not a place worth going to. I agree that the ocean is beautiful, but I
think the desert has its own grandeur and grace.
2) Being away from home for nearly a month is kind of weird. Coming home, it’s almost like coming back to a
place that has been frozen in time. Here’s
what I mean. I set the alarm clock on
the phone last night because I had to get up this morning at eight and the
phone is reliable whereas my actual alarm clock is not. The phone asks for the date first, then the
time, and then what catchy tune you want to wake up to. I entered in the relevant information. This morning, I woke up (thankfully!) and looked at the
clock. I had set the phone alarm for 8 am, but
it was 8:06 am according to my clock that is precisely 6 minutes slow. So I’m lying there at 8:12am trying to figure
out why the darn phone didn’t sing. What
the heck?? Who needs a problem like that
before they’ve had their coffee?? Well,
long story short, when I checked to see why the phone alarm didn’t go off, it
was because I set it for January 7 not February 7. For me, it was like January hadn’t happened
yet since we spent it on the road. I
have to get over that…and soon!
3) Sometimes while traveling, you happen to have
conversations with random strangers. My
favorite of this trip was when I ran into a young man at an overlook on the Rio
Grande. The view was spectacular and he
was taking pictures. He turned to me
with a big smile on his face and I said, “It sure is beautiful!” He grinned and told me that he was 28 years
old and it was his first time there. Up to then, he had spent his whole life in Odessa, Texas, where it is very flat and he had never seen anything as
beautiful as what we were looking at.
His enthusiasm for the natural beauty around us simply made my day. This is what we were looking at:
4) We did pass through Odessa on our way home and
now I understand where he was coming from.
The Odessa area is not the most beautiful area of Texas. But it does have its charms. Like, did you know that there is a
scaled-down version of Stonehenge on the campus of the University of Texas of
the Permian Basin in Odessa? No? Well, there
is. Odessa is also the home of the World’s
Largest Jack Rabbit. No lie. I just love coming across that kind of stuff
when we travel.
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| Stonehenge, Texas style. |
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| The World's Largest Jack Rabbit lookin' pretty smug. |
5) Here’s a packing tip if you are going on a long
trip: Always take a couple of fashionable,
colorful scarves along.
I didn’t and found myself wishing I had on numerous occasions. They take up no space in a duffle bag and
they can really spark up a t-shirt and jeans if you find that you want to go to
a “business casual” as opposed to a plain old “casual” restaurant. Doesn’t that sound like something you might
read in Vogue or Elle? I'm not sure since I don't read either.
