This was a pretty long, but relatively uneventful leg that I made in two days.

Day One: I stopped in West for Kolaches. Then, I took hwy 6 across West Texas. I’ve traveled due west from the DFW area many times, but I’m not sure I ever took this route. Maybe I always feared it would be too slow and I just wanted to get out of the state already, but I’m glad I took it this time. The speed limit was usually 65 or 70, not too much small town slow down, and it was actually quite pretty. I kept forgetting that I was in West Texas. I passed through a lot of quaint little towns (frequently encouraging me to drink Dr. Pepper on a regular basis,) and beautiful, green, ever so slightly rolling hills and farm country. I stopped on the side of the road many times to kick the rotting prickly pear cactus, hoping that flies would come swarming out. (Not one.) This majestic Brahman bull/cow/whatever watched me and laughed (I know s/he was laughing!!) Anyway, beautiful creature, really. When you drive by, you have to do a double-take because it feel like you just drove past some very large, silver exotic animal.

I tried to make it to Roswell. I’ve been there before, but I thought it might be a different sort of experience to camp there. But, I got out of College Station a bit later than I’d planned, and once again, I’d taken the scenic route, so I didn’t really get close to Roswell before I had to stop. I stayed at a very cheap, but comfortable and clean motel. I think this photo of the towels in the bathroom sorta captures the spirit of the place. Obviously, they wash these towels frequently, and they care enough to fold them as best they can, however, they can’t afford to get new ones when they fall apart. Or, maybe it’s just not wort it. I paid $27 cash for the room, including a $5 key deposit that I got back the next morning. I slept on top of the bedding, wrapped in my own sheet. Those who know me well know that these are extreme measures for me.

I discovered that the flies that Spencer and I collected were all dead. I’m not sure if they didn’t wake up from the CO2 or if it got too hot (but, I was very careful about regulating the temperature – by now I’d learned my lesson!) I still tried to dissect some of them because I knew I had a mushroom feeder that was really different from the other mushroom feeders I’d found, but it was pointless. They all went into the ethanol, whole.

It was after 3am, and I was completely exhausted, but I decided to put the hookah together. I had a nice smoke and watched Blind Date or something – telling myself that I could sleep as long as I wanted in the morning and I’d just get to Vegas when I got to Vegas.