I’m so so so so so very sorry reader. I promised and I couldn’t provide but when wireless internet isn’t an option there isn’t much that I can do. 2 days late here is a mountain for you to catch up on!

We’re in Mountain Time now! Going west across time zones is like going back in time! It’s a strange experience to look up at the clock and have it say 12pm and then to look up again in an hour and a half and realize it’s only 12:30pm! We arrived Santa Fe last evening and boy has it been an interesting ride. A lot of things have happened since my last post so lets rewind your mind and start from our adventures in Texas. Bear with me… It’s quite a lot to read!

July 2nd: We went horseback riding and it was incredibly fun. Later that night we went to see Todd Snider and Robert Earl Keen head lined. (If you don’t know who he is never fear, neither did we. Texas has its own top forty and some musicians that are only big there! Robert Earl Keen is one of those artists)

July 3^rd: (Sunday) After Ashley and Jeremy came home from church the guys ran out to pick out brisket to smoke. They came home with 17lbs of meat for 3 people to eat! The guys spent most of the day around the smoker. Later, Jeremy made chilly ( 3 pots: one vegan, one with meat but not spicy, and one with meat and spicy.) The vegan chilly was excellent.

July 4^th: In true Texan spirit after consuming mass quantities of brisket ( save for myself) we all drove to the only place in south Texas that was legally allowed to set off fireworks during the current drought. There we listened to 4 country bands play from mid-afternoon until around ten. There was only 1 band I wasn’t fond of and that was because they played a song in which the lead singer wished for his girlfriend to be more like his dog. Just after the Texas famous musician(Kevin Fowler) finished playing they set off a large fireworks display and though we were celebrating America’s independence we couldn’t help feel that in a way everyone there was also celebrating being in Texas. ( I also came to another revelation that evening…. People are people no matter where you go. The people in Pennsylvania aren’t much different from the people in Texas who aren’t much different than the people in Florida, except that the mean age in Florida is a wee bit higher. People are people.)

Also please enjoy this video of Jeremy sleeping peaceful as one of the bands plays… Loudly!

July 5^th: July 5^th was the day that all 4 of us attempted to be out the door early so that we could get tubing on the Guadalupe River. After we stopped for snacks, ice and beer we managed to get in the water around noon. We decided that it would be a bad idea for us to bring the digital camera so Ashley brought a disposable instead and boy was that a brilliant idea! It turns out that floating lazily down the Guadalupe was more of an adventure than we would have thought. The water was very low and there are several places where that current speeds up and the terrain is a little rough. There were also sections of the river that were not so shallow, where one could hop off one’s tube( or toob as they spelled it) and jump into the cool water. There were time throughout the day where one of us would fall out of his tube during the rapid sections.( Mostly Tony) Six hours later we got out of the Guadalupe. All of us were pruney and covered with river muck. Most of us we sun burned. (Ashley and I we sunburned badly) The beer was gone. The camera was wet ( a few pictures survived )and Tony lost his prized possession : his sun glasses… oh and his wedding ring!

July 6^th: There are actually no pictures at all for the 6^th. Tony and I made a vegan dinner and Jeremy survived!

July 7^th: Heather was right! We went to the Alamo. Sadly Ashley had to work so Jeremy, Tony and I went to see the missions. They are beautiful structures built by Native Americans and run by Spanish monks. Our least favorite though still a remarkable place was the Alamo. The Alamo isn’t even the real name for the mission. It was nicknamed the Alamo because the word means cottonwood and there was a grove of cottonwoods behind the mission. Perhaps it was because the other missions were so quiet and peaceful. Perhaps It was because a whole city grew up around it. Perhaps even yet, hundreds loud, swarming tourist buzzing around looking at artifacts without learning anything made the lives lost on that ground feel cheapened. Whatever the reason the mission encountered were a lovely example of one people attempting to make another people “ civilized” and although to me it was sad, it was also lovely.

Ashley caught up with us at the Alamo, we did the river walk on a boat and then we went to this crazy restaurant called The Cove. It’s attached to a car wash, laundry matt, and a bar! It just so happened to be the one day of the month that was vegan day, which meant that the special was a vegan meal... Lucky me!

July 8^th: Austin day 1 of 2: San Antonio is 45 minutes from Austin. That little geographical space separates two totally and completely different cities. We walked through the state capital… Also built by Native Americans and beautiful! Then we wandered around 6^th street . Tony kept complaining about how he didn’t think that Austin was any different than San Antonio and that he didn’t think it was weird at all. ( We were there too early.) Later on the strangeness of the city proved itself. ( Austin’s slogan is : Keep Austin Weird!) We managed to find a blues band that sounded a bit like The Black Keys playing in a bar without a cover charge. So we stopped to listen to them for a bit before heading to a bridge where a large bat population lives to watch them all fly out from under it at the same time. It’s a pretty incredible thing to experience.

July 9^th: Austin day 2 of 2: Yes indeed, Austin is weird! We started the day off by wandering around the local farmers market. There was free live music playing. (Traditional African music on one side and Country music on the other.) After that we drove a little way out of the city to a house with a bicycle and a dozen highschool sport trophies perched on the roof and multi colored windows. An Austin institution, the Cathedral of junk lives in an eccentric artist’s suburban back yard! It was a crazy fort made out of the strangest materials we’ve ever seen. Oddly, it was beautiful in its bizarreness. Headless barbies, tucked next to an old mattress frame with multi- colored glass bottles stuffed into the coils. The strangest thing bar far, that we saw, was a prosthetic leg! Next we hit up the food trucks also a crazy cool Austin experience. The outskirts of the city are populated with them. Unfortunately the all vegan truck was closed when we arrive … but I did find a Morrocan food truck that swept the grill for me before making a vegan flatbread wrap. Tony had something called( Not kidding) A Pecker from the Fat Cactus.

Then we went to a silly bar with amazing Margaritas called the Jackalope. It was right on sixth street , two blocks from the Alamo draft house where we watch and quoted along with the Princess Bride. It was so much fun. They gave everyone inflatable swords and bubbles which were used to react to the movie. Everyone let loose , booing at the bad guys, chearing Westley and Inugo Montoya on as they faught the six fingered man and the “ Kings stinking son.” We all stood up and spun around yelling “As you wish!” as Westly rolled down the hill revealing that he was The Dread Pirate Roberts. All in all we loved the city and we loathed the ridicules heat.

July 10^th: We said goodbye to Jeremy , Ashley and the pups, Suzie and Petey, and started the long drive from San Antoio to Roswell, New Mexico. We got there in time to meet our host Peggy and her lovely family. Her 13 year old and I talked about Harry Potter while Tony talked to Peggy about our travels. Over all it was a quiet day, which was nice because yesterday was anything but calm.

July 11^th: Finally we have yesterday! We started the day in Roswell with the Bottomless lakes, so named because they are giant sink holes formed by erosion, the largest of which is 90ft at it’s deepest. Peggy told us that people have actually lost cars in them because they do appear shallow. Then we walked around the local zoo, populated by mainly indigenous animals.( other than some ring-tailed lemurs and some lamas)

We went to the local cultural museum. It turns out that Roswell was the home of a man named Godard, the father of modern rocketry! The Alien stuff is kind of a tourist trap, SO naturally we had to go to the UFO museum. It was a fifth- graders school project nightmare… of corse. We expected nothing less. It was hokey to say the least. All the exhibits were posters and Afidavids plasted to the walls next to crazy alien art work. The plus side was that I finally understand why close encounters of the third kind is so named!

Then we headed to Santa Fe. ( Yes I did play the Rent song… I had to.)

We thought it would be a quiet night but it turned out to be anything but. We met our host, past brewer for flying dog, artist/Photographer Terry. He actually drives a school bus! We rode the bus into the city and met up with his couch surfer friend and two of her friends. ( More margaritas) After we hung out for a while we all got on the bus and drove to a Karaoke bar. On the way we bumped into some of the most interesting characters we’ve met on this trip yet!

There on the side walk in the quiet streat there were about six people( I would guess to be of college age) dressed up like monsters! ( I’m not making this up) They were holding signs with jiberish hyroglifics across them and attempting to hitchhike the non-existent cars on the street. They offered us otter pops and explained ( logically) that they we trying top promote this upcoming monster fight… that is to say they were trying to get people to come to this bizarre gathering dressed in homemade monster costumes and fight each other… They were sooo silly. I’ve been trying to figure them out eversince…. I’m a bit stumped.