Tucson to Van Horn, TX

We got an early start today to avoid driving in the heat and pulling up the hills east of Tucson.  They aren't that steep or long grades, but I didn't want to hit them in 100+ temps.  Mission accomplished.

We drove 420 miles today and it was an uneventful drive for the most part.  I-10 parallels a railroad track for many miles in Arizona & New Mexico.  We saw a first today with wind turbine blades being shipped via freight train flat cars.  They looked like special made cars to hold the blades and appeared to be much longer than regular cars.  

Lunch break occurred west of Las Cruces in the rest area there.  Since it was so hot, we had lunch in the motor home with the generator and a/c running.  We did see a big bird along side of the road and he looked dangerous.  What do you think?

The Rio Grande River flows west of Las Cruces and it is almost always dry when we drive by it in the fall.  Not so now with the snow melt and rain they have been having north of Las Cruces.  It looked nice to actually see water in the river, even if it was only a couple feet deep.

We rolled through Las Cruces and El Paso without any problem.  Traffic was heavy in El Paso, but it was moving really well.  I stayed in the middle lane and kept up with the flow.  It is about 35-40 miles from one end of El Paso to the other.  

The Bekin Van Lines truck shown below had a neat saying painted on the back.  Check it out.  Nice to see someone there has a sense of humor.

A Passport America park was our intended destination for tonight, but when we drove by it to check it out, it failed inspection.  Probably would have been ok, but it just didn't look right to me.  KOA was the alternative choice and we snared a nice pull-thru site for a reasonable price.   The have a unique way to forecast weather at this KOA and the sign says it all.

 

 The computer in the motorhome dash was acting up so I took it apart and checked a few things.  I think some of the wires were jiggled loose due to the rough roads.  We use the computer GPS system installed for motorhomes, so it helps us with low bridges and other reasons to avoid certain routes.  It is working now until the next bone crunching bump we run into driving along the highways.

This will be another early to bed night, but we drove through two time zones and lost 2 hours.  Arizona doesn't go on daylight savings time and New Mexico is in the Mountain Time zone and does go on daylight savings time.  Confusing?  Well, in any case our bodies are on Tucson time now and in the morning it will be a chore to get up and on the road early.  

That was our day, how was yours?