It was daylight in the last photo I posted about Day 1, but we still hadn’t left California. We kept driving and now I don’t remember where we ended up, but it was somewhere along I-10 in Arizona.

We had our camping stuff with us because usually on our road trips we find a spot to camp along the way. This was different. For one thing we just wanted to GET THERE. Another factor was that it was HOT. Sleeping bags and a tent weren’t appealing. I think we stopped here at about midnight. Dan decided to sleep in the cab with the seat back as far as it would go. I opted to get in the truck bed on top of the stall mats that we were taking to Katie for her new barn. I really needed to stretch out and not stay in the truck seat a moment longer than I had to. Neither were great options. I was comfortable enough lying on a sheepsking, but the trucks keep their generators on all night and other trucks go by on the freeway all night. We started up again about 4 a.m.

When I used the map app on my phone to plan this trip it showed Home to Blanco, TX to be 24 hours. So after driving for probably 14-15 hours yesterday why did we still have 14 hours to go? That’s easy. We didn’t stop much but you do need to get gas and stop at the occasional rest stop along the way. Also, while pulling the trailer we weren’t staying at the posted limit, especially when it was 80 mph (in Texas).

This was at 6:20 a.m. so it’s somewhere in Arizona between Phoenix and Tucson.

Freeway Art somewhere around Tucson.

I wouldn’t call this Freeway Art, but it was interesting. Does McDonald’s have a new item on it’s menu?

Rest stop about 8:30 Saturday morning.

I want to say “Dorothy, we’re not in Kansas anymore”. You get what I mean, right?

9:30 a.m. Another state line to check off. One more to go.

View of the Organ Mountains/Desert Peaks outside Las Cruces.

About 1 p.m. That didn’t take long.

The phone showed about another 8 hours to our destination.

More Freeway Art. This is near El Paso. I think the Freeway Art deserves a blog post of it’s own.

This smoke plume, across the border in Mexico, was visible for miles. I tried to find out what was going on checking Google. No luck although I did find several links that brought up major fires over the last few years.

Border Patrol station. The dog who sniffed our truck didn’t think twice about the goats.

A Freeway Mural.

Before we got to Ft. Stockton (about 5:30 p.m.) the “low fuel” light came on. UhOh. Ft. Stockton was the next place where we could find gas and fortunately we weren’t too far out.

Both Dan and I are always very careful about not running too low on fuel, but around here it’s not that much of an issue. Town isn’t far away and even when traveling there is always a gas station nearby. That’s not the case when driving through the southwest. It turns out that we weren’t as close to empty as we thought when the warning light came on. I looked it up and our truck has a 25 gallon tank. However, we’d been driving with the trailer at elevation and into head winds and all of those things affected our gas mileage for the worse.

I called Katie from here and she had a Ft. Stockton story. That is where their truck broke down when she moved from California. They were stuck in town with a horse and a dog for a few days waiting for parts.