Texas to Albuquerque

The next morning it was up and on the road again first thing. We re-piled the four of us, all of our luggage, the three dogs, and all of their luggage, into our two cars and headed for Albuquerque to stop and see my friend Vanessa.

Well folks, I didn’t think it would be possible for anything t be a more boring drive than Texas but I was quickly proven otherwise. New Mexico is a whole lot of nothing on repeat. We’re talking, dirt and scrub brush as far as the eye can see. Oh, and… PLATEAUS!

~Photo Op~

Ok, so I may be a little over dramatizing things here but I was seriously excited! I had never before seen a Plateau in real life. I was at once, amazed, awed, and impressed. That is, until the 4000th plateau we passed. The first few were like: “Whoa, that’s cool.” The next few were like, “Hey look, another one.” Then they were just big chunks of rock and dirt that relieved the nearly flat landscape while the neverending hot sun beat down on us and we were invaded by the flies. That’s right, flies.

I like to call this part of the trip: The Land of The Flies

“What’s that?” you say. Oh, I’m ready and more than willing to explain it to you. Here’s the quick version:

We stop at a gas station. I say, “Wow, that’s a lot of flies but we have to get gas.” We jet out of the car doors and slam them closed as fast as we can but those sneaky little creatures manage to infiltrate the car anyway. “Ohhh noooo!”

Driving down the highway doing eighty with all the windows open, we are trying desperately to shoo the flies away. Just when we think we’ve got them all out, we roll up the windows and sure enough- they attack again. Those sneaky little buzzers had been hiding the whole time, just waiting for us to think the coast was clear. We were attacked yet again.

Now, repeat this process about ten times until-

A few hours later we are fly free but it is now time to get gas yet again and seeing as there aren’t that many stations in New Mexico along that stretch of road, we pull into the next one we see.
Attack of the Flies: Part Two. Open car doors, get overrun with flies. “Oh nooo!”

Repeat process from above several more times until we are once again fly free.

But wait! Now someone has to pee. So, to forgo yet another fly incident, we decide to stop at a roadside rest and use the outhouse. Oh yes, did I mention that in New Mexico they don’t have rest stops? They have these little things called ‘picnic areas’ with a couple of picnic tables, trash cans, and if you are lucky- a real life outhouse.

Anyway, we stop to pee. We scan the area. It seems to be fly free so we open the doors and everyone gets out, including the dogs, for a quick potty. It was so miserably hot outside that we rushed back to our cars only to discover that they were surrounded by FLIES!

Repeat the above fly ridding action several more times to rid ourselves of the new hoard of flies but now add several sentences made up of grunts, screams, and curse words. Now, throw in some barking dogs gone fly crazy and that was our trip through New Mexico.

At least Albuquerque was mostly fly free- mostly.

We went straight to our hotel (Red Roof Inn) and checked in. I immediately texted Vanessa to see what she was up too but didn’t hear back from her so we decided to watch a little television, shower, and take a nap.

We woke up a few hours later and I texted again and was told she was busy. L I was in town for one day only and she was busy. I kind of wanted to kick myself because I could have gone to Carlsbad and went to the caverns instead. Actually, there were tons of cool things I could have gone to do instead of ending up there with nothing to do and knowing no one at all.

We spent the rest of the night in the hotel watching tv and sleeping. It was disappointing.