taking the long way around 2

Yuyp. I'm home finally and man, that was a long drive. New Mexico finally opened for business around 1pm on January 1st, and I'll never forget the moment someone told me the highways were open again... I was sitting at Denny's in Amarillo, TX eating breakfast alone, amongst tons of families with 6 plus children - while the waitress keeps saying "Need some more coffee, baby?" to me. Very surreal and yet so very Texas.

I know you don't all really like country and bluegrass, but you have to appreciate how cool that music is on a road trip. There's too much music to make next year's mixmas out of this, so I just published it and you can download what you want. Elizabethtown Soundtrack was a great influence and stuff like Two More Bottles of Wine is just great music anytime.

OK now here come the pictures at last. that's my lucky armadillo on the rear view.

Again, try to appreciate how bored I was... it was a 16 hour drive the first time, about 21 hours the second time.

common question: yes, I did get stopped for speeding once and thank God (I was praying) the cop was not as scary as the one in Texas Chainsaw Massacre. But the cops do wear cowboy hats. And he was polite enough to just give me a written warning. Instant souvenir!

yes that sign says "proud home of george bush", try not to laugh. but the comment "drive friendly - the texas way" - that is so TRUE, texans do drive the speed limit and always wave after they let you in.

above and below is an area of Austin called "south congress", essentially the main street, with really cool funky shops and typical of Austin - plenty of lights and neon signs.
we checked out a very popular tex mex place called Guero's
(thanks for the tip, Kara!) It was tempting to buy a pair of cowgirl boots in TX, but I realize anywhere else in the world that would not really work for me.










The below pictures are from a daytrip I took down to San Antonio
which I found to be a cool, colorful city despite the major-tourist trap the Alamo (flashbacks to Pee Wee's Big Adventure) that's actually in the center of a bunch of skyscrapers (weird) and I'm surprised they haven't just turned it into a McDonalds yet. I know it's an important US monument, but it's way tacky. that's a yummy prickly pear margarita on the riverwalk...