The Trail To Mobile - Day 5 and Day 6

The trail to Mobile for days 5 and 6 each involved a whole bunch of time in the truck. We left Tucson early and arrived in Van Horn, Texas in the late afternoon... some 458 miles later. On the way there we passed through El Paso, that west Texas town made famous by a Marty Robbins' song years ago. We saw a whole bunch of nothing for much of those days except for an occasional pile of rocks.

The good news is that the roads are in great shape and are straight as an arrow with speed limits up to 80 mph in places. Debi still thinks those signs are just a suggestion though.

Van Horn is a small west Texas town just as you might picture it with a long wide nearly empty and dusty main street. Many older empty buildings lined the street as well. There was one spot that was thriving though. It was a Mexican restaurant called Chuys [chew-ees] that was recommended to us by the hotel operator. It turns out that John Madden, the former football announcer who never flies in airplanes, has made this a stop on his travels between the west coast and Texas several times. Now we know why. This little joint served up some of the best Mexican food we have ever eaten.

An early departure from Van Horn landed us in San Antonio some 420 miles later and about 3:00 in the afternoon just in time to watch Pete Carroll out-coach himself in the loss to Atlanta. We are looking forward to a day out of the truck tomorrow [Monday] as we tour The Alamo and The River Walk, both in downtown San Antonio. We hope to be able to sleep in a bit as well... for a change.

Nautical Word For The Day: [from seatalk.info].

Land:

1. Those portions of the planet not covered by water.

From Great Loop Jargon:

2. West Texas confirms the above definition as there was no portion of the planet there with any discernable water.