LasCruces 4/18

Today was a travel day but we still had time to let Alexa reminisce about her childhood discovery of sopapillas on a rv trip with her parents to Las Cruces. Time had faded her memory of which famous roadside eatery it was and we finally ended up at the historic La Posta on the Plaza in Mesilla, a historic community within Las Cruces which was a stagecoach station and where Billy the Kid was tried and convicted (BUT escaped). As you can see, the restaurant was very festive.

When we entered Texas (you go through El Paso to get to Carlsbad Caverns), we discovered the worst drivers we have seen so far. On their commute out of town (yes we were in rush traffic), these cowboys cut each other off, are impulsive, and don't "drive happy" (slogan on tourist signs says that Texans drive happy). We also got to experience the widest "oversize load" we have ever encountered. The oversize load is the truck with such a wide payload that it has a pilot car with flashing lights in front of it. By this time we were on a two lane road, but fortunately for us there was a temporary passing lane on our side because we were going up a steep hill. When the pilot car whizzed passed us coming down the hill, it was closely followed by this semi with a huge metal object that looked like the bed of a Euclid dump truck used in open pit mines -- this huge chunk of steel took up TWO lanes all by itself -- we watched it flash by taking up all of the passing lane. We couldn't believe what we just saw, but a few miles up the road (flat and with no passing lane), we encountered another one. We had to drive on the shoulder to avoid getting clobbered. If this is indicative of the road rules in Texas, Texans should have no problem transporting the radioactive waste from Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant! And there seems to be a lot of open space to store it in Texas.

For Liesl who wanted more pictures of her Dad, here is one of your Dad hooking up the rv after our late night arrival at Carlsbad Cavern campground :)