Golly, We're Still in Texas

This is my first post about why I'm riding, and why donating to Water Life Hope will guarantee your spot on the holodeck.

I'll start at what should be the end of the post, just because the picture's so cool.   We spent some time putting one of the signs on the bus before heading out of El Paso.   We have four signs, none of which we'd been able to attach before we left.  It has to be warm enough for the glue to stick.   Carol and I got one on the starboard side of the bus before heading towards the Cosmic Campground.  
Ed looks spiffy with signage on the starboard side.
Carol and me at the Alamo.

We stopped at the Alamo for pictures on the way out of town.  A nice Chinese man took pictures of Carol and me while Steve stayed with the very illegally parked bus.  Then we set off across Texas.  And boy is there a lot of it.  As we drove the land dried out and the trees thinned out to just plain scrub.  Human habitation was less and less of a factor.   Cowboy movie stuff.  Cowboy driving too -- 80 MPH posted speed limit.
It's fast and empty out here.
In the middle of a whole lot of nothing we stopped for diesel.  And it wasn't there.  Things just thin out in west Texas.  Where was it?  Another 35 miles.  Oh, my.  Steve did a masterful, white-knuckled drive to the next truck stop, where we put 31.5 gallons of diesel into a 33 gallon tank.  We said hi to a busload of undergraduate geologists on the way to their field methods training.  I told them to be sure to use open source mapping software, which appeared to confuse them, and off we went.  At El Paso, 550 or so miles along, we booked into an airport hotel.  We were still in Texas.

The next day was Sunday and we made the 8:30 service at the Church of St. Clement.  Highly recommended.  They had a full breakfast after eucharist, and good wishes all around.  An aptly named parishioner, Lovey, found me first aid supplies for a bad scratch on my hand while she dispensed helpful advice to (presumably) homeless Ishmael. 

If it clears off tonight we'll see the Milky Way tonight.  If not it'll just be a night in the sticks.  Fingers crossed.
 


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