Day 10: Austin, TX to Deming, NM

Day 10, Tuesday: Austin, TX to Deming, NM

KM start: 158,398 Km

Trip Meter: 1,941 km

Time Driven: 7:00am - 5:00pm (6 hours - change one hour time zone)

Sadly it was time to leave Austin and Paul's Mom. We needed to make good time to cover a lot of ground on the way to Phoenix the next day. We were planning to stay in Deming, New Mexico on our way. 

We were partway into our 13 disc audio book by Jan Karon and basically we listened to the book for the entire 11 hours. This is a great spark for conversation - often something in the story would trigger our minds and we'd pause on the book and chat about the issue or topic for a while.

Since we started in Texas we got to enjoy some great Texas scenery for about half the trip. 

Wait, did you catch that?

VARMIT (also known as Varmin) cages.

For sale in a gas station.

Amazing.

Only in Texas.

The drive was dry and hot but beautiful.

When I was in High School I'd bought a T Shirt that had been from a Texan town. It read "Comstock International" and had awesome memories of this shirt for some reason. So you can imagine my excitement when I saw a sign for Comstock Texas.

The roadways had interesting sights along the edges

There were more "mountains" then I expected.

We were driving through El Paso on our way to Deming, NM. I grew up having Taco's on the El Paso taco brand, so it felt somehow exciting, despite being a pretty plain town.

Annnd another interesting thing about El Paso, as you drive on the highway through town you can see Mexico. Like right there on the other side of the highway.

See?

That's mexico!

Also we saw the El Paso University of Texas (UTEP)

I could tell we were still in Texas since there were stars on the side of the road.

Then we entered into New Mexico

They had two signs.

As we were heading to Deming, NM there were many signs leading us there.

Strangely there were more signs for the city than were warranted - the city was not that exciting upon further inspection.

The landscape was both beautiful and bleak at times.

And smack dab in the middle of New Mexico we ran into a border crossing for Mexico and America. Weird. We needed passports and it seemed weird since we didn't cross into a new country.

We passed through ages and ages of dessert. 

The sky was amazing.

Some of the bushes were so cool.

Also we saw a strange little fake town on the side of the road....

Just walls, no buildings.

And then finally we arrived in Deming.

We stayed at the Deming Comfort Inn and Suites for $55.50 a night. Free breakfast, big room with king bed, large fridge to hold our cooler items and pool and hot tub! I was so happy! Score! We ate dinner at Sonic next door and we were happy to grab our fast food, head back to our hotel and eat on the giant bed watching TV. Ahhh rest. Oh and we went to bed by like 9pm so we could get up at 5am and it was awesome.