Day 15: Sunday April 27 - Truth or Consequences to Carlsbad, New Mexico 95F / 30C water water.....

After the worst nights sleep in a bed that had the Elephant's Butte in it before I am sure, I left for southern NM moving north again after Las Cruces to see the White Sands Missile Range : home and test pad for every conceivable missile launched since the 40's and pre-cursor to the space program. Crossing over the San Augustin pass at 5700 feet you see an entire state below, open flat land...you can see why they chose to test missles there. White Sands National Mounument, with it's 280 sq miles of pure white sand dunes is the left over bottom of a sea from 290 million years ago.  Amazing but sadly laking the ocean to make it truly enjoyable and worth frying some more in. It smells like the seaside though...quite bizarre
after so long.

 

From WS to Roswell there's nothing but flat open apache country and roads without a curve for 20 miloes at a time. Temp's in the high 90's and hot winds are the norm.  The heat reflected off the road is incredible, my legs roast. Glad that I am not doing this in July! Roswell with it's International Museum of UFO's tells a good story and has a pretty impressive exhibition about the infamous events of 1947 and the crash of a UFO and the capture of 4 aliens (one living) and the subsequent government and military cover-up.  Zigzagging again south to Carlsbad, I am off to explore some of the largest caves in the world, and escape the heat.

Obesrvation : on almost every road I have passed in New Mexico there have been signs syaing : WARNING: do not pick up Hitchikers.  State prison nearby.  Says a lot about they're awareness of apparent security problems.  I think they should rename the state LAND OF ENCAMPMENT rather than land of enchantment!

Oh and why doesn't the USA add bloody sales tax to the price and tell you what the price of something is including tax!!  AAGHHH!

Day 16: Monday April 28 - Carlsbad, New Mexico to Odessa, Texas

I was told that the drive through the northern part of Texas was going to be boring. That was the understatement of the century! Low flat scrubby green bush and flat open land with no redeeming feature whatsoever.  Strange how almost immediately after crossing the state line, there appear hundreds, if not thousands of the large black slow moving prehistoric bird-like creatures pecking at the ground : oil pumps. If you were blind and couldn't see them, you'd still know they were there from the smell.

Pecos, a town famous for being the location of the first rodeo, is best left as a footnote to read about.  Odessa, aparrently the town nearest the Bush family ranch, is an ugly semi-desolated run down dump of a place with two tall buildings denoting the centre of downtown, what there is, and a never ending main street of gas stations, nasty looking fast food joints and car sales lots.  Called the City of Contrasts, it lives up to it's name, for every corner you take what was seemingly a bad area only looks better better compared to the next. People want to live in a place like this???? Whatta dump! Midland, the birthplace of the beloved baby Bush seems no better, albeit larger.

New Mexico redeemed itself however...the Carlsbad Caverns are truly spectacular. At 750 feet deep, these natural caverns are large enough to house most if not all planes parked at an average sized airport, plus a few football stadiums. Massive ! 250 feet high cavernous rooms some as long as a mile could be the home for an entire civilization!  And nice and cool.  WOW!

I think I will move on to some nicer parts...like San Antonio.

Day 17: Tuesday April 29 - Odessa to San Antonio, Texas

Midland, another sadly depressing place in the barren wasteland of west Texas wasn't worth staying in at all.  But gladly after hours of riding south east, after passing through the aptly named town of Eden, begins the nicest rolling green texan countryside I've seen.  The oil pumps all but disappear and the spring flowers bloom everywhere.  Yeh hah this is fun again.  370 miles later I get to San Antonio...a varied and fun place. Not that I would live here but still enjoyable.  In downtown San Antone, an old flood control system was redeveloped into a long riverwalk, at a level lower than the street, along which exist 6 miles of smart hotels, restaurants, bars and other attractions along with tourist boats plying the riverway.

It has struck me that what American cities all seem to lack that Buenos Aires has in abundance, is a constant stream of people walking and moving about. The USA is ruled by cars.  People rarely walk and it shows when driving through ANY city after dark.  Shame really.

Day 18: Wednesday April 30 - San Antonio, Texas

Got caught up with Jennifer, one of my sisters from my exchange student year in 1979...now a practicing Urologist and somehow like us all, 23 years older, but unchanged, despite doing 17 hour shifts daily.  It's funny how people really don't change much, despite time. And the influences of parents are stronger and more apparent in mannerisms and traits, as you get older.

Toured around San Antonio's King William district with its incredible old houses, mainly large baronial estates built by the German immigrants who arrived and established all sorts of successful businesses in the late 1800's. I can't wait to see what's to be seen in Louisiana! But also noticeable that within a block or two of the nicest areas, are others of shockingly bad condition, roads that Namibia would be ashamed of, and a sad looking bunch of residents just hanging around.

Seems to me that US city life has become somewhat a parody of the film Blade Runner. All seemingly normal people congregate in malls, or domed cities.  No normal life exists outside these vast glass enclosed tanks. Few people wander around outside, and those that are... are a little weird.  I am noticing a lot, for the first time in years of being in the USA, how many derelict, homeless or just plain odd people there are. I have lost count of the number of times someone will ask me for money - but not for food! Mostly it's been at gas stations, as I am filling up my economical tank which costs me all of $4, some loser driving a Suburban Assualt Vehicle of massive proportions will ask me for money for gas! HINT buddy : get a small car! I have yet to be reminded of the southern hospitality and gentleness (apart from Jen and she's family)...seems all of that has gone by the wayside.

Interesting third hand comment from a patient of Jen's about the US Army girl, ex POW, rescued by her colleagues in Iraq.  He said that during WW2 he was a POW for 15 months! She was a POW for 3 days.  No-one made a huge deal of his rescue or treated him as a hero on his return home. Realization : What were once small things are made huge (this girls rescue and rehabilitation); big things are blown out of all proportion (endless hours on every tv channel regarding the upcoming trial of husband's "murder" of wife and unborn baby); but what's really important, the tough realities of life (homelessness, poor medical systems, company fraud on unimaginable proportions), are almost glossed over. Keep em dumb, and in fear and the government can do what it wants. Perhaps Michael Moore is right.

Day 19: Thursday May 1 - Austin, Texas

Short ride through some of the rolling "hill country" to Austin, state capitol and definitely cool city. Clean, modern, smart, well laid out. Lake Travis cool and refreshing too. Time to check out UT.

Day 20 : Friday May 2 - Austin to Houston, Texas

Left Austin, though could easily have stayed, as it is a city full of surprises (nice ones) and arrived into Houston late afternoon after exploring the countryside in between. Very green, lush farmland! Not all Texas is oil field land. Houston in vibrant, alive and exciting.  Love the people here in this part of the country, all keen to have fun and very gregarious.  Thanks Jose, Bryan, Rueben for a good time!

International Festival here in Houston over the weekend so I'll explore that before heading for the Texan coast for the weekend.

Day 21 : Saturday May 3 - Houston to Galveston, Texas

Houstonians have money!  Not all but those that have sure know how to display it.  River Oaks has more homes (estates really) on a jaw-dropping scale than anything I have seen, anywhere.  Each one of the hundreds in this area are at least 10,000 sq feet with some topping out at over 50,000.  All nestled under ancient trees with wide low outsretching branches. Oil money here - and lots of it!

                           

Luckily (I thought) i was in town for The Houston International Festival - what a misnoma. In a cordoned-off area of 10 square city blocks, the Internatonal festival featured food stands and music mainly from Texas and Mexico. There was a Chili stand, but that had nothing to do with the country...just chilli peppers. One lonely looking stand for a Turkish travel agency looked out of place, a greek food stand selling tabouleh and kebabs, and a genealogy stand selling details of your family name and history, amounted to about the only link to Europe in the whole place. Says a lot for the American concept of "international".

After a couple of hours with old pal from Tova days, Janie, who's sadly spending her time looking after her hospital bed ridden Mum recovering from serious surgery, I thought I would move on to and spend the night in Galveston, on the middle coast of America - the Gulf. Mixed advice was given on whether to go...now I see why.

How can you be nice about Galveston? hmmmm....... you can't.  Faded glory, if it ever had any, but it must have, for there are some glorious old Victorian single and two storey wood homes in this beach side gulf coast town.  But that's where any interest begins and ends.  What a horrible skanky place. It's attracted the dregs, misfits and worst of society from what I could tell.  Not only from Texas mind you but all over the south. In less than 24 hours I saw a hit and run car accident (3 girls in a white car with a sticker on it's rear end amusingly saying ARREST ME, hit by one guy in a blue car - he later found and arrested I saw); saw a crack head smoking his pipe too close to my hotel for comfort; was pestered by a so-called recovering drug addict pan-handling for money, and watched other low lifes needlessly occupying space. There's a resort here slap-bang in the centre of this place with rooms starting from $500 per night.  Poor sods that pay that and find themselves in this place! The last huge hurricane that devasted this place was in 1902 - wiped much of it out. I think it's time for another.