Ooooopsy!

Why I didn't go to Albuquerque I can't really say. Probably the mountains. But then I find out about the balloon festival there this week. And that Debbie and Lewis are there. After a long morning debating going back, I've decided to go forward instead. 

For right now though, I'll go back to yesterday. 

Getting from Jack's place to the road is not for the directionally challenged. Or for the Turtle really, but with him leading the way, I got in and out with no damage. He and his dog Lucky headed East and I headed West. Two days of lots of talk and laughter. A very good stop along the way.

Lots of this until El Paso

The biggest place to get around was El Paso. Fairly early on a Sunday morning, it wasn't bad. The interstate through El Paso smells like Mexican food and diesel fuel, the food smell winning most of the way. 

New Mexico is beautiful. Shoulda woulda coulda but didn't get to the Balloon Fiesta 

Some history 

I missed the Continental Divide sign so took this one 1/2 mile farther on

The last time I crossed the Continental Divide was in the Rockies when I was a lot younger. Passes were closing due to snow storms; we were going skiing in Breckenridge and eventually got there. This was a whole different crossing, about 8000 feet lower down and about 40 years older.

There is a thing on the roads here called Safety Corridors, where fines for speeding are doubled (not a problem for me). I couldn't figure out what that meant...proximity to Mexico? The underground roadway? No. According to the officials it means:

The goal of New Mexico’s Safety Corridors program is to identify areas of high crash risk and take steps to correct the problem in order to reduce the number of crashes and fatalities on New Mexico’s highways and rural roads. The program’s objective is to develop a formula for effectively addressing crash problem areas by using a data-driven and collaborative planning and implementation process.

Oh. Ok. I saw no crashes. I did see lots of 'Report drunk drivers' signs though, but no one I'd think was a drunk driver. How would I know, I'm from Culebra.

Today I'll head up toward Phoenix, mainly to get around going through Los Angeles. I'll do a lot to avoid freeway insanity but this will work. 

Onward!

Have a meet your mistakes Monday. Do something moving on.