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| Miles Traveled: 405 Total miles: 3651 Stops: Music selections: Click on highlighted words for pictures... |
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Today marks exactly one week left to go on my road trip, as well as my
last evening in the state of Texas, and it was a good day for reflecting
on all I've covered so far.
I started the morning off checking out of the Motel 6 and beginning with a tour of downtown Austin... I went back to 6th Street, and go some good pictures of the strip there, and then walked up the block to the capitol building (seen above). It was kinda cool that Congress wasn't in session, as I got to snap some nice pictures of their chambers. I always love these old buildings, and their ornate construction. I walked back to 6th Street and grabbed some lunch... snapped a few more pictures, and then back to the car to tour the city some more... I spent about 2 hours just driving all over Austin, and seeing what there was to see. It's a very beautiful city, but much smaller than I expected it to be. I'd pretty much seen everything I wanted to see at that point, so I decided to make a mad dash for San Angelo and bed down for the night there.. The more driving time I can save here, the more time I will have between Carlsbad and Las Vegas. I think the drive from Austin to San Angelo has to be the prettiest part of Texas I have driven through so far.... The flat rolling landscape turned to a more mountainous terrain... very scenic, and awe inspiring. It's amazing how much variety there is in this state. About the time I arrived in Brady, I had my first "near-miss" of the trip...and fortunately my skills behind the wheel paid off here. I was coming into Brady, the speed limit was 70, and I was in the right lane... On the left side of the road was a large "goathauler" pickup driven by an obviously mentally deficient, but rather cute, brunette chick.... The left lane was wide open, and she could have turned into it without any problem or incident, but instead, she decided to turn and pull in right in front of ME as I'm bearing down on her at 70 mph. I jammed on the brakes, turned, and slid the car onto the shoulder while holding the horn down... just barely missing her... When I pulled back on, I caught up with her and gave her a nice scowl and a 1 finger salute... she motioned at me "Oops!"... After a quick pit stop to clean the load out of my drawers, I was back on the road. I ended up making much better time than I thought I would.... and arrived in San Angelo about 6pm. Rather than stop, I decided to forge on and stop somewhere in the Midland/Odessa area. As I neared towards Midland, the sun was setting and lighting up the big Texas sky in a spectacular display of color. I pulled the car off to the side of the road, and got out to watch the sun go down.... I must have sat on the side of the road for half an hour just enjoying the display. Kinda fitting that I would mark my last evening in Texas by driving off into the sunset, huh? I hit I-20 and headed west, ending up in Odessa Motel 6 (I should get royalties for every time I mention their name here!) for the evening. Today is gonna help me out a lot, since I'll go to Carlsbad Caverns tomorrow afternoon instead of Thursday morning, and I will be spending the night in Roswell, NM tomorrow night. Hopefully I won't get abducted by aliens....hehehehe. <<previous ----- <<schedule>> ----- next->> |
