El Paso West, Texas

Oy!  It was like driving through the end of days today.  When we left Abilene the wind was up into the mid 20s.  For the first few hours it was a complete cross wind, pushing on the side of the truck.  The noise is just astonishing.

Notice the ripple on the swimming pool – wind driven.

There is still a lot of oil extraction along I10.  Midland and Odessa were on the route.  Those are two of the worst looking places I have ever seen.  They weren’t helped by the blowing dust coming off the land that has been scraped of vegetation. 

It’s always windy there.  There are many wind turbines as well as the oil extraction.  Interestingly enough we saw that gas is still being burned off at the wells.  I thought the industry had quit doing that and was capturing gas, but I guess not.

This looks like a barn find.  Jim thinks it’s a Plymouth.  There was another one on a trailer following it.  We were surprised to see that it’s actually running. 

Some of the dust.  Look up the road where it gets white.  Dust.  It was just horrible. 

Not to diss someone else’s state, but I have to say that the stretch from Abilene to the border is one of the most unattractive places we have ever driven across.  El Paso is engaged in building highways at a rapid rate.  The existing highways are bordered by jersey barriers and the lanes are really narrow.  I’m very happy we did not have the RV today, it would have been bad.  We are actually staying in El Paso West, which is a separate city from El Paso.  It’s a sprawl from the original city.

Tomorrow we will reach Tucson.  I’m looking forward to eating at home!  By and large, restaurant food has really deteriorated into over salted, over fatted glop.