Want your red wine hot or cold?

We did see the crack of dawn, but still left around 9 and it was 3ºC. We were surrounded by oils wells for the first hour or so; that’s a lot of oil wells when the speed limit is 70 and mainly 80 MPH!

By 11 o’clock we were leaving the flatlands and driving into the mountain foothills. We started seeing Cactus and Yuccas, the sign of things to come.

Van Horne Tx was our next excursion. We stayed there a few years back and wanted to re-visit. The Sands motel where we had stayed looked much better with its new red roof, but the motel strip, which caters to hunters, had seen much better times. This strip is also the main street, very wide, very straight. Many businesses were closed, others for sale, other dying a slow death.

Here’s one pink motel in pretty good shape with nothing behind it but the mountains. .

Some times deterioration hands us something to ponder...

By 12, it became 11 again, our second time-change during this trip. By the way, the time-change at lunch time did not result in a second lunch, pity. The good thing was it was sunny and the temperature rose to 13ºC, less promising was the sight of snow on the sides of mountains, far to the North.

We headed South to follow a state road along the border. These two pictures show a decent hacienda with the famous security fence behind it, that’s the black line in the back of the buildings, or the horses. This fence is about 10 feet high and a blight on the landscape, but that’s another story, and a long one...

Further along that highway, we saw miles of cotton fields, then more miles of pecan trees. This is heavy duty agriculture in the Rio Grande basin. An interesting thing about pecan orchards is that the space under and between each tree is actually swept clean and nothing is allowed to grow anywhere near the trees.

Heading West on the I-10 again and we drove by Alamore Tx where there is one absolutely huge building, the American Talc Co. The signs of mine tailings were everywhere so it had to be a big operation. Shortly after that we started passing talc trucks. [couldn’t resist, sorry]

Later we turned northward for a new adventure; the first 40 miles or so were supposed to be a scenic drive but ended up being horribly flat. Did manage a few pictures, the first being shadows on the mountains to the east.

The second shows the road disappearing into pretty dark clouds that kept threatening snow if we kept driving further north.

Being wise, we opted to return to the I-10 by a different route going westward through the mountains. We crossed the Continental Divide at about 6500 feet, then downward until our ears popped again. At the higher elevations, the nearby fields had patches of snow every few yards, and the temperature was 3ºC.

We stopped for the night on I-10 in a Comfort Inn in Wilcox Az. So far, about 11 pm. we don't have internet in our room, so I'm doing this in the office... Not the usual fun.

When we ate at the home style restaurant next door, the waitress asked Joan if she wanted her red wine hot or cold. Kind of sums up Wilcox Az nicely.