Today we drove from Midland to Deming. We hadn’t driven a mile when we saw the first weird-ass thing. A bright orange little car was in the inside travel lane and it was up on jack stands with the front 2 tires missing. It looked like someone had started to strip it. We drove past and got on the highway scratching our heads. It was about 8:15. There weren’t any cop cars, traffic cones, flares, or anything. It’s as if a car missing its front tires should just be there.

We drove on through Odessa and Monahans. Lots of oil and gas out there. The next weird-ass thing we came upon was near Pyote. It looked like a junkyard where a bunch of colorful banged-up cars were on the frontage road. They were surrounded by shipping containers on stands. Then we saw what it really was-a train had derailed and this was the salvage operation. Many of the train cars were on their sides and all those colorful cars had been new and were being shipped. We googled “train derailment Pyote Tx” and found out 35 train cars derailed 2 weeks ago. No one was injured, which is amazing, and the debris was just incredible. Pyote is an hour from Midland, so it was an eventful start.

We saw hundreds of motorcycles riding in bunches. We also googled and figured they were heading to the Christian Motorcycle Association rally in Kerrville, Texas. We like this part of I-10 and usually see lots of moving trains. One was carrying military trucks of some sort. The drive reminds me of the Chris Rea song, Texas, “Warm winds blowing, heating blue skies, and a road that goes on forever.” The drive across western Texas is like that.

We made decent time. It took about 6 hours with 2 stops. We also had the benefit of transitioning into the Mountain time zone. We got to The Little Vineyard RV Park around 2:15 in the afternoon, set up, and promptly took a nap. The air conditioning was soothing and we needed a refresh. I started looking to explore Deming and found a little roadhouse that was a few blocks away. We saddled up the mutts and walked over to The Happy Camper Club House. If you were not looking for it, you would never know it was there. It is tucked in behind another RV park.

We sat on the shaded patio and Clint went inside to order. It was a local dive that was hopping at 5:30 pm on Friday. There were all sorts of characters including this ancient couple that walked out and got into a truly vintage black sedan they had probably owned for their entire lives. They were somewhere between 85-95 years young. In addition to them, there were blue-collar folks, people in scrubs, and a few who might’ve been school teachers. At 5:58 some music starts and lo and behold it’s Karaoke Night! We had dinner and a show! The song selections varied from P!nk to Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody to Robert Palmer and so on. Most volunteers couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket but they got up there and screeched for the crowd. It was great. We had a cheesesteak sandwich with some local flavors-the green chile. Yum and yum. Oh, and a little while before we left a guy showed up dressed like a pirate. Go figure. We walk D and D back, hop into the air conditioning, and are winding down. Tomorrow’s drive to Tucson is only about 3 hours. We will be there until Thursday. Looking forward to it.

-Cheryl