Lake Havasu to Abilene

My report from Las Cruces, New Mexico was not forgotten but rather prevented by a lack of internet connection.  In the four years since my trek west, I've made several improvements for an easier drive east, but no improvement has been made to the laptop I'm carrying with me; and while four years may be insignificant to the life span of attractions along the road, it is not insignificant to the life of a computer.  A Dell machine of my particular vintage, I was told, notoriously wouldn't communicate with the hotel's system.  And so, no report was made.  Which leaves me with quite a bit of catch-up to play this morning from my hotel in Abilene!

On Thursday morning in Lake Havasu City, I visited the London Bridge -- shipped to Arizona stone by stone in 1971 -- and the English Village surrounding it.  At a relatively early hour (by which the temperature had already reached 110), all the shops in the village were still closed tight, but  no matter.  It was the bridge I was there to see.

From there, I also visited an interesting yet also closed-tight set of shops farther from the lake, called Shambles Village.  Modeled after The Shambles in York, it has a quirky and distinctive architecture.

After my tour of Lake Havasu City, I drove east toward my Las Cruces destination.  On the way, I stopped for lunch in Phoenix at Giuseppe's on 28th.

I should mention here that on my trip west I made a point to stop at selected Roadfood restaurants.  Though selections along the Mother Road were not exactly plentiful, they were certainly more abundant than those along the more southerly route I have chosen for my return.  And so for this route I also examined the travels of Food Network's Guy Fieri. Giuseppe's had been featured on Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives. 

For the sake of brevity (still more to cover here before check-out), I'll say that the small Italian restaurant set into an Arizona strip mall was a nice lunch find.  And the portions were conveniently generous, as finding dinner later in the day would prove more difficult.

The drive through Phoenix and the search for Giuseppe's had slowed my travel, and the 9-hour drive stretched out with additional stops to fill one tank or empty another.  As a result, I arrived in Las Cruces after they had rolled up the roads.  As Las Cruces boasted one of the few interesting Roadfood suggestions en route, I was disappointed to find Nopalito closed before the clock struck 10pm.   Still full from lunch and ready to sleep, however, I picked up a burger from a national chain and called it a night.

On Friday morning I awoke in Las Cruces, New Mexico with plans to visit White Sands National Monument.  In fact, I'd opted for this rather southerly route through the Mojave Desert in the midst of July expressly with that purpose in mind.  And so that's what I did.  An hour's drive onward toward Alamogordo led me through the White Sands Missile Range and into the park.

I haven't mentioned him yet, but those of you familiar with the first cross-country trek have probably wondered whether Frank Sinatrat was taking this adventure with me as well.  Well, folks.  Yes he is.

I thoroughly enjoyed my stop at White Sands.  With the constraints of the road trip determining the hour of my arrival, however, I was visiting the park with the sun directly overhead.  One day, I would love to go back for pictures with morning or afternoon shadows.  However, I was quite pleased with this shot of Frankie -- one of my favorites of him.

With sand on my tires and in my shoes, I left White Sands with the practical aim of getting to Abilene before midnight.  The drive from Alamogordo should have been only a little more than 7 hours (a shorter day of driving planned to give me time at the park), but I'd learned how easily an extra hour to could accumulate in pit stops and time zone changes, so I forged ahead. 

Now, if you look at the map above, you'll see the route I PLANNED to take to Abilene.  All interstate: I-10 to I-20.  This is not the way I actually went.

You see, this time around I have a tool I did not have on the drive west: a GPS.  This proves to be a mixed blessing.  It's a wonderful helper when finding restaurants, gas stations, and hotels... however, it has a mind of its own when it comes to finding a route lush with them.  Leaving from Alamogordo rather than Las Cruces, it abandoned a backtracking to the interstate and instead found every back-road state highway imaginable through New Mexico and into Texas.  Often I found myself driving for hours through farm country with fear that I'd run out of gas before the next stop.  It was only a few miles short of Abilene that it met up with the interstate again, and the state roads had taken me farther through New Mexico than planned, through the Lincoln National Forest and north of El Paso where I'd expected to stop for lunch.  When I finally found a lonely gas station, I filled up and bought a sandwich, not knowing when the next stop would come.  Good thing, too.  For the next several hours I drove through fields of windmills and oil drills with a rather crude (ahem) odor filling the car.

Here's the route I ended up taking:

I arrived at the Abilene hotel relatively early but very ready to stop, find an internet connection, and relax.  I decided that with two more days on the road ahead, I would be happy to simply order a pizza for the night and, happily, my room key had the number for Domino's emblazoned across it.  I ordered dinner, fired up the computer, and turned on the telly.  I may be back in the Central Time zone and a little more than halfway home, but there's still a lot of driving ahead.  The break was more than welcome.

Today I'll finish the drive across Texas and, for the first time on this journey, I'll cross a complete state without stopping for the night as the route takes me through the northern panhandle of Louisiana.  Though I won't be viewing the typical tourist attractions near the gulf, I will be enjoying my first foray into that particular state.  

There is more to tell, but it will have to come another time.  I leave you with a photo of my entry into New Mexico, which followed a spectacular lightning display across rainy mountains on all sides -- in front of me, behind me, to my left, and to my right -- but all too distant to impede my driving.  More on that in another post, I hope.