Mexico Nuevo: Picture Blogo

Greetings, all. Matt and I have returned from our New Mexican trip nearly in one piece, or since I am speaking of two separate entities, I will say two pieces. We began our trip in the early morn, barely squeezing everything in my car including Matt's bike and two six packs of St. Louis brewed Schlafly Hefeweizen per Beth's request. Many do not know that once you pass the fifty or so billboards in Missouri trying to entice you to visit Meremac Caverns where Jesse James hid out, there are a series of porn shop and gun billboards juxtaposed with Jesus billboards. Then you hit Oklahoma. Make a fist with your right hand and hold it in front of your face. Now point your right index finger to the left....That's Oklahoma. It should look something like this:

But in actuality I would be selling Oklahoma short if I didn't include a mind-blowing landscape picture.

Matt and I stopped in OK City and went by the memorial which was very impressive and very well thought out and executed. It was beautiful and haunting all in one. Still very sad.

This is a picture of the "Survivor Tree" which caught on fire that day and was surrounded by burning cars and still lived.

The following picture is of Matt freaking out when my car finally broke down in Shamrock, Texas. You may not have heard of such a place because it is a town of 2,700 people.

By the grace of God, right when my transmission went out, we were at the Shamrock exit and literally coasted the length of the exit where my car finally came to a rest in the parking lot of the Irish Inn. I highly recommend it for your next destination vacation. It was thankfully very clean and cozy, and the woman at the counter gave us a ten percent discount given our predicament at the time. We got to our room; Matt drank some of the beer; I drank vodka.


In the morning, we tried to eat breakfast and then walked ourselves next door to an automotive repair place (also very lucky). The kind gentlemen there informed us that they could not do transmission work, but that he could help get us lined up for a tow to Amarillo which he did. The rest of our good fortune in the midst of our disaster was because of Bob Edwards of Edwards Towing.




He towed us to Amarillo and talked of politics, religion, wild fires, and towing disasters. All subjects were light-hearted and welcomed.




He told great little jokes as we drove by "the largest cross in the Western hemisphere." Bob already had one of his own.




I sold my car to Bob in Amarillo, Texas for $150 or "a hundr'd and a half," as Bob put it before dropping us at the Budget Rental Car. A Chevy Cobalt had to serve as our noble steed for the rest of the trip. We still made it to New Mexico by 8:15pm.






After some New Mexico micro brews and a well-needed sleep. I woke the next day and went to watch Beth instruct her Drawing 1 students.





She then took us to the historic area of Mesilla. The weather was incredible. This is a picture of us in front of an old monastery.





The next day Matt and I headed to Dripping Springs to do some major mountain hiking. I can't describe how perfect this day was, but this picture does pretty well.

Broccoli Tree.

This is Matt in front of Dripping Springs. "Can't see the spring," you say?

We realized rather quickly that the name Dripping Springs was more literal than we had anticipated. It was dripping out of a pipe no stronger than a leaky faucet. We laughed 'til we cried. Here's a zoomed in picture. I've circled the pipe. There was a little bit of foliage beneath it and then some flies.

We couldn't help ourselves.


Flying Saucer Cloud

Later that day, our friend from Edwardsville, Chris, who has been living in Tuscon, drove up to Beth's as well and stayed for a few days too. Friday, we all headed to White Sands National Monument.

Looks like snow. Is actually sand.

We rented a sled and waxed the bottom and shot down the dunes. It was like being on the moon. The sand is actually gypsum, doesn't absorb heat, and is as fine as table salt.


Beth!

I had the best Mexican food and margaritas I've ever had in my life. The weather was perfect. We played some pool and hit up a couple pubs. We also fit in a heated game of Scrabble and a few hours of The Office Season Two. Everything went perfectly once we got to Las Cruces other than when Beth's neighbor backed into the rental car. We headed back early Friday night to get a few hours of driving out of the way in order to get the car back by Saturday night. Funny enough, we went from driving through desert to driving through a snow storm all in one day; there were six inches of snow in Springfield, MO.