January 13 New Mexico

Sunrise found us hooking up and getting ready to leave Benson in 26 degrees. We are headed to Van Horn, TX today and should arrive mid afternoon by leaving early.

This is about 7:30 a.m. as we head to the office to check out.
The view along I-10 as we travel east. I think this was in Texas Canyon.

At a rest stop in New Mexico, a typical desert planting. Everything was going well until we neared Las Cruces, NM. BAM!!!!!

The front tire on the passenger side blew after hitting some road debris.

If any of you are familiar with the area, we pulled over right near the correctional institute and the fairgrounds. As we were calling the Road Service, we heard gunshots. We had been put on hold and as we waited, we continued to hear the gunfire. We locked the doors and scrunched down a little. We observed a puff of dirt going up in the air every time we heard a shot and correctly assumed that it was target practice. It sure put my blood pressure up for awhile. Then an eighteen wheeler pulled off in front of us and this driver walked back to check on us. We told him we had already called road service and someone was on the way. He just kind of stayed around and offered to help change the tire. To make a long story short, we were glad he stayed. He was driving back to Florida after delivering a load of orange juice to Calif. He was ahead of schedule and he wanted to make sure we were ok before he left. He was an angel. He actually did most of the work when road service arrived. When I offered to give him something, he just said to pass it on to someone else. So he let me give him a hug and our gratitude.

We did make Van Horn but it was getting dark and fortunately we didn't have to unhook the truck.