Our 33 Day, 6731 Mile Road Trip–part 11

Following our visit with friends in Cottonwood, AZ we were back on the road on May 16th, day 25 of our road trip.  We had no further plans to visit national parks or scenic areas but were headed to Texas.  As I posted last November Connie and I had become a part of Broken Vessels, a prison ministry.  Our intent was to visit some of the fellows we had been writing to behind the razor wire as well as spend some time with Thomas and Raquel, the founders of the ministry.

Before we left our friend’s home they tried to show us on the map and tell us of possible routes we could take to avoid Phoenix.  However, I felt that based on the time we were getting onto the road and the distance we had to travel that we would arrive in the Phoenix area in late morning, well past the morning rush hour.  And, that proved out to be true.  Even though there are 6 lanes of traffic each direction in parts of the city we did not experience any major difficulties.

We had checked the Pilot Travel Centers/Flying J directory found in the back of each months issue of Challenge Magazine (which can be picked up free at any Pilot or Flying J location) and had made Lordsburg, New Mexico our goal for the night.  There was a quite nice Flying J there.    The picture below was taken the following morning before leaving.

Day 26 of our trip, May 17th, we travelled on toward Texas and actually got into the big state about mid-day.  We drove about 400 miles that day, stopping for the night in Fort Stockton, TX  There was no Pilot or Flying J close but the Kwik KIng, Oasis Travel Center in Fort Stockton was quite nice.  Shortly after arriving we got to see something of interest.

A truck pulling a low-boy carrying a wide–load pulled into the truck lot, and I mean a wide, wide load.  It was of interest because of what that load was.  On that low-boy was the bed of one of the large mine trucks like we had seen at the Borax mine in California.  I was able to walk over and take a couple of pictures.  You can see the huge size much better than trying to picture in your mind what a truck bed 25 feet wide and 45 feet long looks like.  One of the escort vehicle drivers told me they were headed to a testing facility in Arizona.

The following day, day 27 of our trip, May 18th, we drove the remaining 300 miles or so to Hondo, TX, our goal for the day.  In part 12 I’ll tell you of our visits in Texas.