Ramada Ltd Van Horn Tx

... much there and the marker thats placed has seen better days. It riddled with bullets holes and covered with graffiti. Still kinda cool to see.

The rest of the day is riding hard!! I was about to give up after about 700 miles but found myself on a stretch of highway with nothing for about a 100 miles so I headed reaching my goal of Van Horn Texas against my will.

I finally made it to my hotel at 1045pm. Just about 15 hours of riding!

... could really walk across, about 3 feet deep, clay at the edge, then a sort of cobblestone bottom to the other side. A beautiful deep canyon that the river comes through - the Santa Elena Canyon - we swam a bit below that, but with a huge cliff looming on the Mexican side, above a narrow shelf where cows were grazing. John and Tilly waded on the Texas side. Then we drove back up and camped way up in a basin in the Chisos mountain range, at a park ...

... a small independent motel, proudly boasting that it is American owned. It was slightly shabby but clean and cheap. The lady at reception was an elderly lady, Texan through and through, and, for those who have seen the Dave Gorman film about travelling across America just using independent petrol stations and motels, the motel would sit proudly amongst those he visited. Whilst standing outside admiring the neon sign that buzzed and flashed in a 'Psycho' manner ...

... I am not sure what the THING is. I also stopped at the teepee. I am not sure what it is supposed to represent. It seems to be abandoned. I did notice some junk food bags around. Maybe it is shelter for the homeless.

... but it wasn't in our natural reaction! We see a scorpion and run... Dan showed us his office at Phoenix and at 9am we started our trip...mile after mile after mile...for 550 miles, taking us through Arizona, New Mexico, along the Mexican frontier at El Paso and into Texas. We have also "lost" two hours as we have passed two time zones in total, so by the time we arrived at the motel it was already 10pm ...

... again to report our sighting... us: "we just spotted a snake under one of the buildings across the yard" nutty park ranger (being nutty seems to be part of the job description, but they are all nutty in a friendly, endearing, tree-hugging way): "lucky you!" us: "if you say so!" She produced a folder with photos of all manner of desert wildlife and asked us to pick out "our" snake. We found a reddy-brown looking one and decided ...

Holy smokes folks. Its Africa hot here. 101 in the shade. Even my car is protesting about the heat. Tried to make the AC cooler and it said "look lady, I don't do Africa hot so settle down." So I dealt with hot when not in direct airflow. HOT!!! OK, so some observations: Wal-Mart truckers, while safe, drive VERY FAST! I was clocking 85 and no joke, Mr. Wal-Mart trucker was pushin' me. Good Lord! Who gives these people a license ...

... to know their parents better and live under the same roof with them as adults (or in my case under the same canvas tarp.) All is well. Please continue to pray for safety and restful sleep. I pray often for as many of you as I think about. Love you all. Heidi and her folks PS Bruce Ladson was the lucky winner of the contest. Las Cruces is the 2nd largest city in New Mexico and for that he wins... opportunity to be printed here in my blog.

... in Jersey. I'll get my money's worth since we are going to the parks in California and Chicago. There were lots of roller coasters that we went on such as La Vibora (bobsleds), the Texas Giant which is the #1 wooden roller coaster in the world towering 14 stories, Shockwave with its back-to-back vertical loops, Mr. Freeze which shoots us off from the start at 60-70 mph and then it goes backwards, Batman the Ride, Runaway ...

... rest area near Van Horn at 11:37 pm-long day and I covered a lot of territory. Not too interesting to write about but it was great to see-all unexplored territory to me, hoping to get back some day to see it at a more leisurely pace. I covered 522.7 miles. My art website and links to my artwanted portfolio http://home.earthlink.net/~greenvanartu sa/