Heading south from NM to TX. Right off the bat, as soon as we cross the border, we lose another hour of time! DANG!. Texas is in the Central Time Zone.
The shortest route from Carlsbad NM to any sort of freeway in Texas is via Hwy 285. The truckers all know this, and this is where they all are… and all of their blown tire recaps. We are bumping along at the 75 or 80 mph speed limit on a road that needed to be repaved about 30 years ago. It is 105 degrees out. Really, it is that temperature! In a line of trucks. WHAM! We hit a blown tire recap in the middle of the road. %*@$#!!!! Pull over and try not to get hit by a truck. Whew! No flat tires. But, the front passenger side wheel-well cowling is buggered up. The driver/mechanic secures it as best he can. Start down the road and whap! A big ol’ chunk of cowling flies out. Pull over again, and watch behind us. Fortunately everyone steers around it, we back up and recover it. Put it in the back seat. Driver/mechanic once again does what he can to keep more parts from falling off, since we are a good 80 miles to anywhere. Welcome to Texas. There wasn’t even a sign anywhere to tell us Howdy y’all!, so I found this later.
We stop at Ft. Stockton for the night. It’s just a little spot on the map. But they had auto parts stores! YAY! So Kenny buys some kind of silicone stick-it-together kind of stuff, and some clippy-plug do-dah things to clip the piece back onto the car, and voila! Ken’s roadside/motel fixit station!
Back on the road in Texas in the morning. We spend awhile on Interstate 10 – woohoo! The southernmost interstate! There are even rest areas on the Interstate (not commonly found on other roads!) I thought these little picnic spots at a rest area were neat.
We cut off at Junction, TX and head east/northeast toward the northern end of Austin. We did see a couple of roadrunner birds running across the road like they are supposed to. I wasn’t quick enough to get a snap of one, so I stole this one from the internet.
![th[8]](http://lattitudetravel.com/travelblog/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/th8-300x197.jpg)
We were in the “Hill Country” section of Texas. On Hwy 29, we saw lots and lots of cattle ranches. Most of them had fancy driveway signs. This one wasn’t so fancy, but it was on my side of the car.
We get to Austin, and we connect with a friend that we haven’t seen for many years. We’ve known Steve for about 20 years or so, but he moved to Austin in 2002. Today is his birthday!! He is a guitar player, and used to play with us on a worship team at our church before he moved. We enjoy a wonderful meal and setting at ZTejas at the Arboretum with Steve and his fiancé Sandy.
Then, since we all love music, and it IS Austin, they find where some of their friends are playing tonight, and we go to the Sunset Grill.
Allen & Ladonna were fun. They are actually able to make a living doing music in Austin, which after talking with Steve, is quite amazing. Austin is beyond saturated with musicians. Even the panhandlers won’t hassle the musicians, because they know the musicians are broke. They are a dime a dozen in this town, and there is music everywhere! Sometimes the musician might even have to pay to play!
Final birthday kisses for Steve.
In the morning, we head in to town, just to see “East 6th Street”, where all the music is. Steve said it spreads all over town, but 6th is the famous spot. Here are a couple of shots. Every door leads to music.
And then … the Capitol building!
We weren’t in Austin long, but it was a special stop that we really wanted to make so that we could see Steve. He is still as lovable as ever. We really had a fun time with them.