On the road again...

"Country road, take home, to the place where I beloooong..." O.K., I-10 might not be considered a country road, but it does go through some desolate parts of the Country. Last Sunday evening my brother, Sean, flew into San Jose to drive back to Texas with me. It didn't take much persuasion on my part. (Personally, I think he did it because he forgot my birthday back in March, and so felt like he had to make it up to me. Who really wants to spend 28 hours in a truck?) We drove away from Aptos, CA this past Monday at o'dark-thirty. (3:54 a.m. to be exact) I wanted to get over the grape vine on the 5 before the heat of the day because with 160,000 miles on my truck, I was nervous about it overheating. Luck was on our side, and my truck ran great with the a/c working. 16 hours after we started, we drove into Demming, N.M. If you've never been to Demming, don't go. You're not missing anything. Earlier that day, El Paso had a deluge of 8.5 inches and I-10 flooded. State Troopers were turning people back in Las Cruces. If the water didn't go down, we would've had to drive 1 full day out of our way to get over to Texas. Ugh! We finally found a vacancy at the Stage Coach Motel. It was the kind of motel you wouldn't want to stay in by yourself. As Sean and I were watching the news in the musty dank room, he asked me if I'd seen the goth looking guy that came out behind a curtain in the lobby. I told him that I had seen the guy and he was more psycho killer-ish than goth. We made sure the door was triple locked. Luckily, the water receded back into the Rio Grande and the next morning I-10 was opened. The drive was thankfully uneventful. It feels good to be back home in Texas!