Welp, we not only made it across TX, but we trekked through New Mexico and more than half of Arizona too! I’m writing this from a hotel room in Gila Bend, Arizona. Where? Exactly.

Just yesterday morning – I can’t believe it’s only been a day and a half – we left out sweet little oasis in Austin. Just 90 minutes or so down the road we entered San Antonio and made for the Alamo. On the way, we passed this significant exit:

Kinda fun, even for Eric, since he took Solms as his middle name when we got married. His idea!

We journeyed on to the Alamo.

Kinda cool to see in person, particularly because it’s right downtown. There’s, like, a Marriott and a dive bar beside it. Very strange. We briefly brushed up on our history, saw some old guns and swords, walked through the church part – which is the part that you always see pictures of (who knew?) – and then made our way to Riverwalk. Beautiful, right?

We knew we had to bite the ginormous nearly 600-mile bullet, as it were, so it wasn’t long before we headed west into…nothingness. We played the Cows on your Side game, we marveled at how cool trains are, and we worked on our visual differentiation skills. Is it a cow on my side? NO! It’s a horse! Shoot! Some of these poor sweet cows were completely alone with nothing else as far as you could see. I mean, like an individual cow, and nothing else. Were they lost? Should we have been worried? What’s the story there?

It was a long day, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as I had built it up to be. Eric and I, knock on wood, are doing remarkably well at being patient and gracious with one another about most everything, even my navigational skills. The dogs are a dream in the car. Addie likes to stand up to look out the window once an hour or so, but Waffles sleeps the entire time. We have snacks, we have podcasts for days, we listened to the George RR Martin novel that isn’t in the Song of Fire and Ice (Game of Thrones, if you only watch the show) series. We stop when we need to, we have no schedule, and we’ve even been sort of okay about what kind of food we eat. I couldn’t have asked for a better trip, really, and that just tells me that I am not cut out for road trips.

I just don’t like them. I knew this before, but we kinda broke it down today. Eric wanted to know what he could do to keep me from getting grumpy, as I did when we got to our airbnb house in Anthony, NM, otherwise known as the west side of El Paso, TX. You know, the main thing that has bothered me on this trip has been the lack of central heating. How spoiled am I? Every place we’ve stayed has said it was “heated,” yet only one has had central heat. The others have relied on wood stoves (little ones!) and space heaters, which terrify me because I’m constantly afraid they will set the house or my dog on fire. Last night, it was cold. The whole house was just as cold as it was outside. The pellet stove on the opposite side of the house was lovely and kept Eric occupied for longer than it should have (watching it, not tending to it). But it didn’t heat our bedroom, which btw was open to the kitchen and hall and had no hope to hold in the heat from our space heater. The whole point of this trip is to be warmer for a few months, so I’ve had a little trouble adjusting to our chilly beds.

Notice the border fence. We were super close to Mexico!

Sunset in Mexico…well, we were in TX, but the view is Mexico.

The terrain has changed a lot throughout the past few days.

But like I said, I really couldn’t have asked for this trip to have gone much better. I feel like such a brat for complaining, but it’s always been my goal to be pretty honest here.

I feel like you can probably tell from my writing that I’m nearing the end of my road trip rope. I reread my last post and the editor in me shuddered. Sorry ’bout that.

In that spirit, however, I’m going to make quick work of the rest of tonight’s post.

Today I woke up in a better mood, due, in no small part, to Eric’s having moved a space heater into the bathroom in the middle of the night. It’s a lot easier to get up when the bathroom is warmer than your bed. We drove maybe half the distance to Tucson before Eric saw billboards for Dwayne’s Fresh Jerky. Obviously, we had to stop. Look how happy it made him!

Newly restocked with jerky, we ventured on. The exciting part of the day was a stop at my aunt and uncle’s house in Tucson. They, sadly, were off skiing in Europe, so we didn’t get to see them. However, I love love love their house, I love Tucson, I love their yard, I love the huge saguaros everywhere, and I only have wonderful memories of being there, so I was excited to show Eric the view, the pool, the shuffleboard court, and the cacti. I think you’ll understand once you see the photos.

The opposite view doesn’t disappoint either:

We had a nice picnic, let the dogs explore a cactus or two, and then got on the road again. I could’ve stayed for hours just hanging out, but it made sense to get going. Something tells me I’ll be begging Eric to spend a week with me out here in the near future.

Oh, and if you have a sec, zoom in on the picture of Waffles by the pool. His little face makes me laugh.

This is what happens when our family tries to take a selfie together: Waffles freaks out because he assumes Eric is going to throw him into the pool, and I get a picture like this. Probably my favorite of the trip so far.

Last note for the night, we ended up in Gila Bend, AZ tonight. It’s tiny and weird. Check out the pics from the gas station.

Here’s our hotel:

But then again, you can’t beat this sunset.