Our first stop was Sonic in Tuscan since we had some Sonic gift cards. Enjoyed a great meal. Then I took the drivers seat and we drove through the rest of Arizona into New Mexico. It was amazing how many cacti there were in Arizona...then when we got to New Mexico, the cacti disappeared and were replaced by Joshua trees (which look like they’re out of a Dr. Suess book!)
Interesting realization: On 10 (maybe other highways too) exits are given numbers based on their mileage from the state border rather than just going in order. I mean they still do go in order...it just skips numbers if there aren’t any exits during the mile.
Stopped in Deming, NM to gas up then hit the road again.
Our next stop was dinner at Chope’s. Bill Bivins (playwright of the show Matt just set designed at the Playhouse who grew up in New Mexico where we were driving through) recommended it to us.
We got off 10 after Las Cruces (we found out it means “The Crosses”) and drove on some little highways. We saw a little boy (9 or 10) riding on a horse alongside the road...ridiculous.
Finally, about 10 miles off the highway we found Chope’s. This restaurant was awesome, it was literally inside of a house that had been renovated into a restaurant. And the place was packed so obviously it was popular. I had a burrito and Matt has a combo plate (enchilada, taco, tamale and relleno). The food was delicious and authentic as promised by Bill.
The family next to us (with a super cute bald baby) struck up a conversation with Matt about his wildflower shirt (which, yes, he was wearing again despite the fact that I suggested he change shirts after 2 days...) The family was going to be doing a relay tri this summer. Cool!
Then we hit the road again. Passed into Texas and drove through El Paso which looked rather disgusting to both Matt & I. We drove along the Mexican border for a while.
2 cool things we passed over today:
The Continental Divide
Rio Grande - we actually passed over it 3 times (over, back then over again on our way to Chope’s)
Changed time zones from Arizona to New Mexico (because Arizona doesn’t follow daylight savings)
Then we changed one more time zone somewhere in between El Paso and Van Horn. So we lost 2 hours today, but it was all good because we’re headed to the middle of nowhere to stay tonight so we didn’t mind getting to the hotel. We’re staying at a Motel 6 so we know they’ll keep the light on for us...haha.
relationship status: great. Matt says I’m boring in the car...but I was just tired. He’s boring sometimes too...especially when I’m driving and he’s taking naps because I always seem to drive mid afternoon which is prime nap time.
As the sun went down, we continued our drive on 10 straight towards a big bright orange full moon.
Interesting fact: The back of cat-eyes are red. Who knew?
No comments:
Post a Comment