What a difference a day makes...

The previous morning I was awoken by the sound of thundering motorcycles outside my door. This morning it was me breaking the early morning serenity, or would have if there was any serenity. Let me recap my previous motel experience.

My neighbors car at Motel Bien Venido, should have been a clue?

As stated, I should have stayed with a motel with an American name, the Smith Motor Inn would have been a better choice. The Bien Venido (Spanish for the "good sales pitch" was not ranked high enough to get any stars. In fact the only celestial body I saw was the drunk lady on the next wing over mooning the parking lot.

When I entered the room I quickly found, hunted down and killed a bug that would have been big enough to eat my keys. That would have been the end of it for Betty. She had a low tolerance for insects, especially ones big enough to have tattoos. But I am much less demanding.

When I was unable to get the Wi-Fi to stay connected long enough to upload pictures or post my blog I went to the office. The owner of this establishment appears to be from India and lives in a room off the back of the office with his wife and grown child. They also run another business from that room. If you've ever called tech support for your phone and talked to Bob, that's him!

He was just as much help with the Wi-Fi as he is with my phone problems. My problem wasn't listed in his script so he had to refer me to his wife, a lovely woman who is also a Doctor. 

So he called the Doctor, woke her up, he said "Doctor, ain't there nothing I can do". He said "DOCTOR, to relieve this head ache".

She said "let me get this straight, you put put the line in the password box and typed it all up, you put the line in the password box to wake it all up". After three verses she took my IPad, shut it off, turned it on, connected to Wi-Fi, published my blog and handed it back to me. By the time I got back to the room, it had kicked me off. 

I tried repeatedly to log on and became frustrated to no end. Once when I had a (temporary) connection I tried to start Pandora so it would know I am still using it. It played half a song (guess which one?), then froze. I couldn't get it to do anything so I finally shut it off and plugged it in. I shut the light off, laid down and instantly started getting notifications that I was receiving emails, even though I wasn't on line! 

I jumped up, ran across the room and grabbed the IPad to see if it was magically fixed, but it still told me there was no connection. So I again shut the light off. It was then that I became aware of other noises that had been hitherto unobserved.

The toilet was leaking and about every 15 minutes it would auto-flush. The shower dripped loudly onto the tile floor every 30 seconds. And either there were a pack of pachyderms living upstairs or the bug I killed was but a child. I turned the light back on and scanned the area, finding nothing. Light off!

Apparently there is a city ordinance requiring every train that comes through town to make itself known by sounding it's air horn with three shorts and a long, then repeat twice more. At least I assume it's an ordinance because all six trains that entered town on the tracks directly behind my room used the same pattern. 

In-between trains 4 and 5 (which would make it about 4 a.m.) I awoke from my second ten minute nap of the evening. I was sure I heard something on the floor in the corner. I quickly turned on the light and caught 'em! A group of six huge cockroaches were playing poker at an itty bitty little poker table they had set up in the corner. That was bad enough, but their cigar smoke was the straw that broke the camel's back. After all, I paid for a non-smoking room!

I got up for good about 7 and marched over to the office. I was bound and determined to get my money's worth from this establishment and they promised me, in addition to free Wi-Fi, free coffee in the morning. I picked up the pot and could tell it was full, so I opened the top and cut a large strip of the very, very thick coffee (I know it wasn't Espresso Tom, it was too thick), bit a piece off and threw the rest in the waste basket. That'll get even with them.

So I was on the road by 7:30, choosing to put Alpine and the Bien Venido in my rear view mirror before stopping at a saw mill for some piece and quiet. The sky was very heavily clouded and it didn't look good. I traveled all day however with my best friend moving clouds out of the way ahead of me!

There is a theory prescribed to by those of us who have shuttled vehicles on wash-board dirt roads, that every road as an optimum speed at which one can travel. Instead of the tires falling into and climbing back out of every rut they glide nearly across the top of these chatter marks that will knock your teeth out at lower speeds. Thusly, I have come to realize that traveling about five mph under the speed limit and stopping at a sufficient number of historical markers and bathrooms allows my personal weather escort enough time to move clouds around and ready the way. I wish I knew a pilot that could fly alongside some of these clouds and look for Betty's finger prints.

I put in 200 miles by noon and retired for the day at just north of 300, staying once again dry all day. That is not to say it did not rain. There was ample puddles alongside the road and every where I stopped people were asking me how I was handling all the rain storms that have plagued the Texas plains for days. I'm now over 3600 dry miles and it is a miracle.

I have seen some unique rock formations and a couple of very interesting river canyons; other than that it was 300 miles of desert.

From top: Eagles Nest Creek, a unique mesa at the Pecos County line and the Pecos River

A stay at the Holiday Inn Express tonight will be just what I need (it doesn't get more American than that), With lightning quick Wi-Fi I have been able to upload all pictures, a couple of video snippets and six program updates. All is right with my world tonight!