The First Trip

Well today was the first day on the road. I got off to a late start due to all the wonderful friends and neighbors that came to say goodbye. It was very heartwrenching to see your kids cry as they left friends.

Eventually I got off with our dog Hank. My wife and kids went to grandma's while I live in Texas and look for a house. My drive took me through southern Utah, western Colorado, and into New Mexico where I stopped at Albuquerque for the night.

My drive took me through several Indian reservations but the town of Shiprock caught my attention. It is in the Navajo reservation and is the sight of several books by Tony Hillerman. What struck me was the utter poverty and lack of oversight of their resources. Roads were in terrible condition, almost every sign had graffiti, and the general lack of hope was evident everywhere. I've been in poor, depressed areas before but I've never seen anything on the scale I saw today. One other item that stood out was the amount of roadside memmorials to accident victoms. Drunk Driving alert signs were everywhere and apparantly the bottle has claimed a significant number of lives in this small community. I saw more roadside flowers and crosses in this small town than I had seen in my entire life combined. It was very sad and depressing.

One fun note, Hank and I stopped at Sonic for dinner in Farmington, NM. We ate at the park benches and I found out that Hank loves onion rings. He had almost the entire batch.

Well it's off to bed and then on to College Station tomorrow.