We enjoyed our visit with the Dahotres. I met Anita back in 2000. They moved to Farragut from Tullahoma, and their daughter Shruti was fatefully placed in Erika's class . . . right next to Erika . . . and they were both wearing green shirts which made them instant friends! Shruti joined my Girl Scout troop that same year . . . Anita and I became friends as well. The girls spent many nights "sleeping over" at each of our houses, and we did a lot of things together. Naturally I wanted to visit with them on our way to Phoenix as well! I miss them!!
Last night we had dinner at a place called BJ's Brewhouse, and WOW they had great food! I actually just discovered they have locations in Tennessee as well . . . that's exciting!
Somewhere between Denton and the New Mexico state line we saw this guy!
Leaving Texas, we headed west for Roswell . . . the site of a wildly speculated 1947 U.F.O. crash!! Whether you believe in aliens or not is irrelevant because the evidence is there . . . it's a cool place to go. Of course there's a museum . . .
Our next stop would be Santa Fe, and since it was only 3 hours away, I called my friend Candy to let her know we'd be there before too late. Little did I know we'd find trouble that would delay our arrival by 4 hours!!!
The Village of Capitan sounded interesting . . . we'd reach it in time for dinner . . . maybe even watch the sun set over the top of the Capitan Mountain range. It's also located in Lincoln County . . . where Billy the Kid was finally captured. And later I'd discover, was the birthplace of Smokey the Bear!
We managed to get out of there before it got too late but hit some rain. Rain out in the desert is a little concerning since the arroyos can fill up and flood without warning, so I figured I'd check out the weather forecast . . . it didn't look good!! The route we planned on taking north to Santa Fe was being hit by what appeared to be a major storm, so we figured we'd go a little out of our way and hit I-25 at San Antonio (NM) . . . a distance of about 85 miles . . . more than 60 miles west of where we should have gone north to Santa Fe . . . really out of our way. But . . . better safe than sorry, right?!?
We hit rain off and on . . . a little hail . . . lots of lightning . . . all the way to where we would hit I-25. It didn't seem that bad though! Just a mile before the interstate we came to a dead stop!! It was dark by then, and we could see there was water pouring over the road . . . dangerous conditions in the dark. One guy in a small truck drove through it and flooded his engine out so bad it quit. We chose to turn around and travel the 60+ miles back to our original route . . . Highway 54 out of a town called Carrizozo . . . since most of that storm had passed! Problem was, we didn't know what the conditions would be on that route either.
Turned out we made it . . . without incident . . . to Santa Fe . . . AFTER midnight!! We found a hotel for the night since it was just way too late to roll into John and Candy's house.
What a night!!
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