The Land Of White Sands

After spending two days on the border of Mexico in El Paso, Texas, we headed back inland into the state of New Mexico. On this loop of our trip we're hoping to repeat as few locations as possible from the ones we saw on our last loop around the US, but White Sands National Monument was just so astounding last time that we couldn't pass through New Mexico without stopping in again. Although the afternoon we picked could have been slightly less windy (read: 40 ml/hr wind gusts), the park proved itself just as amazing as we'd remembered it. Instead of writing a long post about what all was so amazing, I'll let pictures speak for themselves.

(Near) The Murder Capitol Of The World

Sunday morning, after boondocking on the side of Hwy 118 outside of the McDonald Observatory we got back on I-10 and headed towards El Paso. The last 80 miles of Interstate 10 leading up to El Paso mirrored the Mexican border and it was exciting to be so close to a foreign land. Unlike Europe, where one can visit multiple countries in the same day, the US is so enormous that it is a rare treat to find oneself on the doorsteps of another country. El Paso lies right across the border from Juarez, and unfortunately, Juarez has recently seen a huge increase in drug related gang violence, leading to it being dubbed the “Murder Capitol of the World”. Most online travel guides warn against crossing into Mexico in this part of the country, and we decided not to test our luck. Instead, we spent our two days in El Paso exploring the city and the outdoors at the Franklin Mountains State Park.

West Texas Driving

Last Friday we checked out of the Midtown RV Park in Austin and headed west into the Hill Country of Texas. We were retracing the same route we’d taken just under a year ago, heading to the little town of Fredericksburg. We passed exotic animal ranches, where antelope and reindeer grazed under the warm sun. We passed sprawling pecan and peach farms, and big grass fields with long horned steer, lambs and sheep.  After spending a full month in the busy metropolitan Austin, we were more than ready to get back into the rural side of Texas; to step into a slower pace of life.

We Win Some, We Lose Some

One night in December, while we were back home in Fayetteville, I was checking my Facebook feed. One of my running girlfriends had posted a link to a local article and announced that she was looking for a partner to compete with. Her statement intrigued me and I clicked on her pasted link. Isn’t it funny how the smallest, most innocuous moments in life like that can lead to some very interesting and unexpected changes? Well, in our case, the link lead to a reality TV show casting, to be held in Fayetteville, of all places. Producers from LA were picking new contestants to compete in sets of two on a spin-off of the Bear Grylls show. Castings were being held nationally in 9 different cities, and somehow little ‘ol Fayetteville had made the cut.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Valentine's Day also coincided with our last day in Austin. We decided against going out to a fancy-shmansy dinner (which isn't really our style anyways), and instead spent the evening on the Whole Foods patio. On Thursdays the store offers up handmade large pizzas with three toppings for only $10, so we called in a pepperoni, mushrooms and artichoke pizza, picked up a bottle of chilled Riesling, and some sugar snap peas from the produce section. Nothing says "I Love You" like pizza and wine in paper cups while watching a good Netflix show on the computer (free WiFi on the patio!).