Day 27 Tuesday February 4

lot of this sort of thing today

fireplace in the ruins of Fort Lancaster

Cloudy, windy and cold in the morning at Hueco Tanks. Got out of there, backtracked to eastern edge of El Paso and by 10 or 11 had lunch at Tiger Truck Plaza where the food was good, the ladies friendly and serious especially the one sweeping the dust off the 100 feet of porch, but the setup was odd, the gifts in the sprawling gift area odd the woman sweeping and sweeping odd. All in all a good lunch stop except no propane even though there was a propane refill station all in seeming good order. Got propane later at Flying J Truck World but even there the tech conflated the woman's gas ahead of us with ours, but it was a win because I snagged a bag of fritos and a can of jalapeno cheese dip in the transaction. S driving again so she got tried of it and got us a room only 87 miles away in Ozona at America's Best Value Inn there and proceeded to try to get her nails done but no dice cause she returned and said something about at least it was a walk. Just before Ozona we took the Fort Lancaster scenic loop and did see the remains of the fort but other than the double rainbow which we could have seen from the interstate, it wasn't really super scenic. There was a near ghost town called Stafford. S says Ozona is heading down hill as well so we will make a dinner in the van parked just outside our room here at ABVI. Cold front is coming in.

Day 26 Monday February 3

The Duck - an important landmark on the secret map to the Kiva

5000 year old rock painting of Jerry Garcia

two more from the Cave Kiva at Hueco Tanks

entrance to Cave Kiva - crawl and roll starting at S's pack

It started like any other day on the road, but after a while S drives and I hide in the way back. S drove well and even in the way back, where it is ruffer than the front because of the dual wheels and the stiff suspension or something, it was pretty smooth all in all and I stayed and played with the phone until we began to enter El Paso. From the nearer back it looked like a megacity on Mars, a city state. Has its own army. Fort Bliss goes on forever and has enough stuff to take over say another city state like Houston or New Orleans. Every thing is tan. But it is the freeway system that most impressed me in the near back - incised images in muted reds and browns, sweeping entangled interchanges, 12 lanes each way all new, all finished, no stains, no trash.

Actually it all started with the free breakfast at the Hampton. But that was not so hot but the staff was friendly as were the three cops. The highlight was ending up at the Hueco Tanks State Park out east of El Paso 30 miles. Have to sort of apply to get into this place and have an indoctrination in a private room at the old ranch house, and get a card to carry with you at all times, and shut the gate to the campground behind you and finally turn in your drivers license to get a secret map of the route to the Cave Kiva. And that’s okay. We eventually found our way to the Kiva and crawled in with 5 or 6 20 year old rock climbers and it was all close encounters with ancient red and yellow rock paintings that were done 5000 years ago by some Jornada Mogollon tribesman but looked like Banksy. The wind again, the lentils again, the G&T’s.