50 States, Day 338

  AmarilloTexas to Carlsbad, New Mexico   326 Miles

"Worry is an abuse of God's gift of imagination."

~Unknown

We struggled to leave Terry and Saundra- and three three dogs, hot tub, home cooking, guided tours and Terry waxing eloquently about the writing business. Not often does a person get to stay with their agent, and I was blessed with the opportunity. 

We rolled out and waved goodbye to better friends than ever before, and headed for state number forty-five, woo hoo! New Mexico is the last state we haven't visited before. And with five states to go, we feel like we're in the final laps. 

So far the state is unremarkable, with desert to every horizon, broken up by oil fields or pumps that look like dipping ducks, drawing valuable crude out of the ground. Some places we rode by and encountered the air saturated with oil, as excavators dug and trucks trundled around, moving soil and laying pipe to move more product. 

How unremarkable is it, you say? We resorted to playing the Alphabet Game. Got to Q, the worst letter, and stayed stuck on it for ten miles of country until we found one in Carlsbad and finished the game in one block. 

Winter is definitely over, as the temperature climbed to ninety-one, and yes it's a dry heat, so not too bad, especially when moving, but when we cruised through town, stopped at every light and searched for a motel, it warmed up and we got a bit short with one another. 

We dithered about motel versus campground, but with windy conditions and the park sixteen miles out of town the wrong way, we found a Motel 6 and settled in. QG appreciates the television tonight as Dancing is on. I got the bearings greased in the trailer and went inside to write. 

And now, an iPad Rant:

I inserted the memory card for today's photos and rather than save only today's shots, it decided to save every picture on the card, not offering me the 'Skip Duplicates' option. After a number of attempts, I managed to get it to give me the option, hit the button and it saved all the photos anyway, from the last fifteen days. And it saves them twice, so I now have four copies of the photos, and finding one in the larger haystack becomes even more difficult. And soon the Cloud will run out of memory, grr!  I'm going to find an eighteen wheeler truck driver and ask him if he'd like a wheel chock. 

And now, Rested and ready, Quilter girl!

I was amazed at how far we travelled today.  We got an earlier start than normal and gained an hour today.  The roads were straight and without delays so it was relatively painless.  The wind was a bit much, but not as strong as Kansas.  We stopped in Hobbs, NM and had some great Mexican food.  The service was slow, but the food was great.  Now to watch 'Dancing' and knitting.  Tomorrow we will visit Carlsbad Caverns, not on our original plan but a great treat highly recommended by Terry and Saundra.

QG

See you at the Caverns tomorrow.