The Desert Gem Memories Part II

Heading out across west Texas is a sight unexplainable. But, I'll try my best to explain it. You have miles and miles of nothing. Nothing but the sound of the tires rolling along the road, and the sound of thoughts churning in your head. Those thoughts you sometimes voice to a buddy sitting next to you, and some you decide are best for you to keep to yourself.

The Cars and Trucks are all headed somewhere, but I think most of them forget to look around on their trip. These cars and trucks are more concerned about their destination than the trip. Not us. We are soaking in the entire trip and creating memories.

We pass a sign advertising a crater created by a meteorite at a time when nature didn't care who was occupying a certain place. Nature happened regardless of the negative outcomes. It was somewhere around Midland, but I can't be for certain without looking at a map. And, to tell you the truth, I'm too comfy sitting here in my writing chair to get up and look up this information.

Now the crater was this big hole in the ground that could have been dug out by an oil company who made a mistake and found that there was no oil to be drilled in this particular location. I can see it now...
"Bill, I think we made a mistake."
"What do you mean?"
"All the oil to be drilled is just north of here."
"That new guy you hired don't know nothing about maps."
"But, he's my brother in-law."
"We're going to lose a shit load of money."
"I got an idea. We can dig a big hole in the ground, and set up a little museum. We can say a big crater crashed here and charge people to see it. We can cell t-shirts and stuff that says, 'I (heart) Texan Craters'."
"Sounds good to me."

So, we saw this crater. Walked around in it. And, bought nothing from the museum.

We hopped in the ol' Jeep and headed on the road again, across the West Texas sand, through El Paso.
For those of you who have taken I-10 through El Paso from East to West, you don't want to spend too much time there. One of the first sights you see is that to the south is Juarez. The shanty border town made of cardboard. One side is a third world country just waiting for the bridge gates to open so they can go to work here on the US side. The US side is just an extension of Third World prosperity. We fill up with gas on the more prosperous western side of El Paso, and are on our way.

Wanting to make a stop at White Sands National Monument, where these big sand dunes are just stretched for miles in the middle of the desert, we follow the signs and mistakenly arrive at White Sands Missile Range. There was no other soul around, but could see explosions off in the distance. We decided to press on, when finally we spotted a big sign that read NO TRESPASSING. We had found White Sands alright. Just, not the right White Sands. I just knew the ol' Desert Gem was on someone's missile target, so we turned around and got the hell out of there before we became white sand.

In one day we had made it through Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona. Driving across the Arizona desert at night is a feeling of contentment. The air is cool and you see stars that don't exist in the city. Somehow, we finally felt free. We were far from our homes, but closer to ourselves than we had ever been.

With the road taking its toll on us, we pulled into a little motel in Gila Bend, AZ at around midnight. In the morning, the green Jeep would be Christened.

To be continued...