Car Candy and Airplane Aaron ? WTF?

I thought that I was behind before....NOT! Now I am really behind. I'm going to do my best to catch up here, although I am sure that I'll miss some of the details due to my short term memory loss and the time since some of these events.

Aaron decided to travel with me to LA, and visit a friend there; Tom. It worked out for me to be able to stay with Judy, whom I had met briefly in Seattle. Judy is a friend of a friend and now I consider a friend of mine. Who knew that I was not only going to get to see old friends....but make new ones along the way! YEAH!!

Aaron, Tom, Judy and I went met for some Tex-Mex in LA (yeah...should've waited for Texas for the tex-mex). It was actually VERY good. Two pitchers of Margarita's later and a tummy full of delicious taco's, we separated ways.

Judy and I ended up at a local Country Bar somewhere on Sunset Blvd. I can't remember the name of the place. There was karoke and bull-riding (no...I didn't participate in either, much to Judy's disappointment). She did however, tell them that it was my birthday! A round of free shots and perhaps the largest ever pink cotton candy were had....and they sung Happy Birthday to me. Uggghhh!! I have always told people NOT to ever do this for my birthday, I would be so embarrased! It's interesting though, I wasn't all that embarrassed. I think that the guilt from the lie over-shadowed any embarrassment that I might have felt about being sung too.

Oh...check out the moon!!

LEAVING LA

From La, we headed out toward Tucson. We were about to the Palm Springs exit and Aaron finally got a return call from a friend there; Don. We stopped into Palm Springs and Aaron stayed with Don while I had plans to head through Joshua Tree National Park.

The park wasn't far and my plans were to swing around to the north side of the park and head south-east through the park to return to I10 further to the East. I headed out the way that some random person at the gas station directed me (maybe in retrospect, he was playing a trick on me). I must have gotten turned around because after driving around in the countryside of the desert surrounding Palm Springs, I somehow found myself back on the I10 headed East; just out-side of PS. I spend about 45 mins driving around in circles around PS! Nice.... ={

A while later on I10, I found myself at an exit marked for Joshua Tree! I was at the place where I had planned to exit the park back to I10. Now, since I really didn't want to trek through the park in the wrong direction, I simply pulled a short way into the park, took a couple of quick photos and got back on my route toward Tucson. I can't really comment on Joshua Tree, as I only saw a small fraction of the area; it looks to me to simply be more desert fauna.

A quick rest stop near the CA/AZ border resulted in one of the best sunsets of the entire trip. The sky was ablaze with a myriad of colors. To the west oranges and yellows and to the East the pinks and purples! BEAUTIFUL!

MEXICO

Walking across the border into Mexico is always an unsettling feeling for me. The cattle-gates (it's my word for them) are very daunting. I felt the pit growing in my stomach as I walked closer....

On arrival, I 'hired' a guide (not really necessary but it turned out to be a time-saver); and he headed me directly to the optical shops. The goal for this trip was to get some prescription glasses made and pick up some meds. Glasses were found, meds bought and I made perhaps the quickest trip into Mexico of my life.

Antonio and his 'boss'?

I was surprised at the lack of other American's. Any other time I have been to a border town, the amount of American's usually outweighed the number of local's. Here....I only saw about 3 other American's during my entire time there. A little unsettling! I had my taste set on some street taco's! While waiting for the glasses, I scouted the area for my taco's....without luck. It seems that without the American tourist, the street taco stands were non-existent. I settled for a small restaurant along the sidewalk and had the most disappointing taco of my life. The taco-truck in Elko, NV was SO MUCH BETTER! I thanked Antonio on my way out of town and my palms sweated as I stood in line to get back to the USA!

AIRPLANE Aaron...Car Candy

That's his mnemonic for our little duo! Aaron was flying into El Paso to meet me again on the road. I had about five hours of quite boring driving prior to getting to El Paso.

Aaron's plane arrived without hitch and I was waiting for him over coffee at the local Denny's when he arrived. We had considered staying the night but instead, we were both pretty wired so we decided to continue to drive and stop during the night when we tired. Before leaving El Paso we stopped in for some liquid fuel at the local Starbucks. I had just asked Aaron if he was ready to go and Willie Nelson came on the overhead music with 'ON THE ROAD AGAIN' It was one of those priceless moments. I walked back into the Starbucks to get some ice/water for Aaron and when the barista saw the Nalgene bottle, she very excitedly said 'did you know that those really are bullet-proof; just like they say?' WTF? I thought. It seems that the Nalgene makers tout that their product is bullet-proof and so this girl had to check it out for real. She told me the whole story! You know your in Texas....

We ended up not stopping until we arrived safe in Austin, TX.

The night-drive was great fun. I got to see my very first wild coyote (pics are horrible). He just stood there on the side of the exit ramp like he wasn't fearful at all.

A quick stop in Ft Stockton, resulted in Aaron nearly getting taken to jail! We found the largest Road Runner ever!! Aaron climbed up on the plastic bird and pictures were taken. If only he had been holding a laso! haha

Ozona resulted in a pretty cool statue of the state of Texas where even more photos were taken.

Just past daylight we passed the cutest little town; Fredricksburg. It's originally a German settlement and there are several German restaurants and beerhaus.

I am now safe in Austin at Aarons Mom's house. I LOVE HER!!!