The Road Trip, part 21

Day 20 -- Tucson to Van Horn, Texas

With a long driving day (and possibly a night) ahead of us, we bade our good-byes, took some pictures, and hit the road around 10:00 am, which for us is getting a move on rather early. Bruegger's was the site of our final stop in Tucson, taking a late breakfast with Aunt Mary, who gave the kids a ride in her convertible for some last-minute fun. And then, we departed, heading a few miles south to get on I-10, which would take us most of the way home.

We did stop in Willcox (Exit 340 -- this is important if anyone wants to also make this stop, as signs are sparse, and if you miss it eastbound, turning around is difficult for several miles) at Stout's Apple Mill for some of Val's fondly-remembered apple pies. Both the standard and Dutch (crumbly sweet crust) versions were quite yummy, and we picked up some syrups for gift-giving, including apple pie syrup, which is made from the pan drippings created by pie baking.

We crossed out of Arizona and into New Mexico, though the terrain hardly changed. Most of this state passed by under and beside us with little interest -- we had many miles to go and wanted to get home. (Not even Carlsbad Caverns tempted us much.) The one feature of note in New Mexico was the trains -- very long, and a lot of them, chugging along just north of the highway, moving things westward (at least the trains we saw were going that way; perhaps the eastbound trains run at night). Mainly our route was flat, straight, and long.

New Mexico gave way to Texas in the late afternoon, and we were back in the home state at last. Our travels took us through five total -- Texas, New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, and Arizona, so that's 1/10th of the Union electorally. Of course, these are some of the big ones -- in New England, one can hit all six within one dedicated driving day.

We pulled off for dinner, finding a Golden Corral -- not great, but the buffet style serving means that there will be something the kids will like. I reviewed our road atlas -- of nearly 900 miles to go, we'd knocked off just over 300. The plan for driving through the night was not looking promising. The kids needed some energy draining time, and Val asked our waitress if there was a park nearby. She gave us sound and simple directions, and as sun was setting, we drove off and found the park. Carson and Amie both took to the playscapes (Carson also ran around in general, loving the chance to really stretch), while I ducked back into the car -- sunset is mosquito time, and I had already been bitten. Even under darkening skies, the playscape was crowded with little ones, but eventually families began leaving, and I called time for our needs as well. Fed and exercised, Amalie and Carson settled in, and we got back on I-10 for the drive through El Paso. We saw a gigantic hillside light star -- only one, of course, as befits the Lone Star State -- just north of the highway as we traversed the city, which was quite pretty.

Looking south, Mexico is right across the way, and the lights over the border are dense -- and stay right up to the border for quite some distance. Even after the highway took us beyond El Paso and the American landscape went dark to our right, the Mexican side remained well-lit for miles.

We motored on. I spotted a shooting star (isn't there a meteor shower around this time of year?), which is always a cool sight.

Not far past Sierra Blanca, the highway closed down, all traffic funneled into a truck inspection stop. We waited, clueless to what it was about, and as always happens in such lines, it moved smoothly until the truck right before us, when everything delayed for an extra five minutes. Finally that cleared, and it was our turn. It was US Customs, doing their job late at night. "Are you all US citizens?" the agent inquired. "Yes," I asserted, and offered to provide our passports (we had brought them against vague notions of visiting a border town while in Tucson, but never really pursued it). He declined and waved us through, and we were back on our way.

A while later, cruising along, my attention suddenly was commanded by the mighty blast of a train whistle! Just to our left, another freight (yes, traveling east -- they do run at night) had snuck up on us, and the whistle was alerting a fast-approaching crossing, lights flashing and bells clanging (there was, however, no traffic there to benefit from this son et lumiere performance). It was beautiful -- not only was there this massive engine and train pounding along the prairie tracks, but the moon was rising above it. The image was a nocturnal fantasy. We paced the train for several miles, but then it slowed and we began pulling away, heading into the night.

We pressed on. Now into our third state of the driving day, we also crossed our second time zone line -- Arizona, which doesn't bother with Daylight Savings, was a Pacific clock; New Mexico and the extreme west end of Texas, Mountain; and now we were back in Central. Our internal clocks told us it was 10:00 pm, but the cell phones read midnight; two hours, gone. The kids had been asleep for a few hours, and I was feeling stiff. Val was prepared to drive, but I considered that unfair to the kids. They needed a bed to stretch out. We pulled off in Van Horn, Texas, and took a room for the night. Both kids were transferred to bed without a twitch, Val and I unloaded the minimum bags needed for the morning, and we settled in for our last night on the road, just under halfway home.