Third day of travel, Tuesday, October 9

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I also have to confess that we are lazy campers because we eat out most of the time! So, we drove across the freeway to the IHOP to have breakfast. We also needed to get gas. We always watch the prices as we drive along and realize that it is always more expensive to buy gas right at the freeway exits. So, we do try to go away from those. Don has a new app on his Nexus called “Gas Buddy” and he was successful in finding the least expensive gas station in Tucson, which was not too far from us.

After fueling up, it was back on I-10 for another full day of driving. We aren’t taking a lot of time for sightseeing on this leg of the trip, but I do occasionally look up the towns as we come to them. As we were heading for Las Cruces NM we came to Deming NM. I discovered that the Mimbres River disappears into the ground north of town to reappear in Mexico! It is also a good place for rock hounding. Maybe we should come back here!

Las Cruces is the site of an ambush by Apache Indians in the early 1800s, marked by many crosses. I didn’t see them as we passed through, but there were lots of signs to Mesilla, which is a well preserved Western town, associated with Billy the Kid – another place to visit. At Las Cruces we left I-10 for a brief respite on SH 20. The Rio Grande River flows through this part of New Mexico and the farms and pecan orchards were proof of the presence of water.

Unfortunately, we had to return to I-10 at Anthony NM, on the border of Texas. We got as far as El Paso – which has three Wal Marts to choose from! We had dinner at Gundys – the Texas version of Colonel Sanders - KFC. We also learned another lesson of travel. When I tried to use my credit card, it was denied! When I called the credit card company they asked if we were traveling. I guess they did not expect so many charges outside the LA area and were concerned that the card had been stolen. So, whenever you travel be sure to call your credit card company and tell them, so they will not expect fraud.