Vanishing Point

After some work came my way, I headed back home as quickly as I could manage taking into account weather, stamina, and road conditions. I still have a few notes from my trip that I'd like to turn into a blog post, so here they are. It was a clear night and I had an expansive view from my hotel room in Clint, Texas. (That's where I took the sunset photo.) A not very exciting little restaurant in Clint may also serve my favorite steak ever. It's a ribeye marinated with carne asada flavors and grilled up juicy and tender (unlike most carne asada, which is usually a thinly-sliced tougher cut of meat). They offer it with a baked potato, but if you ask, they'll substitute rice and beans. Yum. Driving through Las Cruces, I saw a pickup truck with what I thought were Luci lights on the dashboard, and I thought to myself, "A kindred spirit!" I have several that I keep charged up on my dashboard. But a second glance told me that they were baseball caps,

I did want to drive back a bit further north... I really did. But the weather just looks too scary. Bitterly cold, and closer to the projected path of the next big cross-country winter storm than I'm comfortable with. Why did I want to go further north? Partly to spend more time on historic Route 66, especially this stretch:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uucy_blcSrg although I understand that it may not be in such great shape any more:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_uAy9JuT_E  It still would be fun to try, but not this time. Going Southeast instead of Northeast, there's still going to be a cold snap, but it will be about 20 degrees warmer. Lows in the 20's instead of the single digits. With any luck, when this next cold snap passes, the weather will start to mellow out a bit. Going Southeast means going through the El Paso area, and you might recall that I'm not a fan of urban driving. So it was with some delight that I noticed a sign for historic missio