Getting Ready and Going: Driving West Part 1

I'm starting out with a half dozen pictures (that will eventually be on the bottom of the "Driving West" series) that tell the beginning of the story.

The 17 ft truck they assigned to me was a regular gas truck, and with the tow hitch, pulling our little Saturn behind, we got maybe seven to ten miles per gallon, and with a thirty-plus gallon tank, I was putting eighty bucks of gas in every few hours. This was not good, but gas is expensable.

In any case, after taking Corrie to the airport on the morning of my birthday, I went with the full truck over to the Uhaul place to get the tow hitch. Getting the Saturn on it was no problem, but getting out was, since the doors were blocked. The driver side window is too unsafe to climb out of.



Here's a glimpse of our slow caravan before we got out onto the highway. Me up front with Tux and towing the Saturn, and Carol, my mother-in-law following behind with our Passat wagon.



That first day was slow going and hot. The plan was to take I-10 all the way; through Texas and New Mexico, to my mother's outside of Phoenix, and eventually into Los Angeles.

It took a few hours of sputtering along US HWY 290 heading west before meeting up with I-10, which comes west out of San Antonio, and is south of Austin. On I-10 though, in Texas, between San Antonio and El Paso, they don't mess around: this is the highest posted speed limit I think I've ever seen.



The next two pictures show how I kinda kept my wits during the boredom (the radio pissed both me and Tux off). I took the first at dusk on my birthday, shortly before we stopped driving. It didn't really come out, but I was trying to get the orange of the setting sun sky contrasted with the blue of the other horizon. The next picture is of the next morning, with the rising sun in the mirror being bright contrasting with the nighttime blue...the windows are dirty, but the idea is there (I like to believe, anyway).




This mountain tip is known as Picacho Peak. It pops up out of the abyss like so many other peaks and driving you watch it grow for almost two hours before going past. I love the name, like that famous pocket monster...Camping is allowed at the base, and the spots were well attended.