Day 221 : Más café por favor

Location : Truth or Consequence to Fort Davis

Hot Point : Surely every day should start with a soak in a hot springs tub?

Low Point  : Constant and unrelenting exhaustion

Boiling Point : Is 4 cups of coffee too many to start the day?

Truth or Consequences, obviously the best name for a town anywhere in the world. This is how I pictured small town USA and how I pictured breakfast. A tiny town where everyone knows everyone and a fire engine from England is a pleasant surprise first thing on a Wednesday morning. Now first things first, breakfast. Our most important meal of the day as generally we don’t have lunch or if we do it’s normally filth (McDonalds, Burger King, etc). The Happy Belly Deli treated us to a master class in good old American cooking with a chorizo and scrambled egg feast, oh hello and good morning. But surely a good breakfast is not complete without a good old natter with a local or three. This is why we love small town USA, the characters, the stories and the enthusiasm for our expedition. To accompany my four coffees and splendid breakfast was a lovely chap who by all accounts has been round the block a few times. Stories of the road, trucking, the changing face of the USA and life in general. Super stuff.

The roads in this part of the USA are incredible. Martha loves them but we all know she hates cities and especially ones with smashed up roads. Today’s appalling road award goes to El Paso, New Mexico. Val was the unlucky driver to be scheduled to drive her hour through this mess. To be fair I think these moments stand out because big chunks of our American road trip have taken us along some of the best roads in the world.  So when Martha get rattled by these concrete free ways we feel it the most. Now our original journey was supposed to take us through Mexico, literally a few miles from El Paso. It was only two months ago we re-routed to avoid Mexico due to warnings from the foreign office and every person we met. Being down in this part of the world and so close to Mexico this decision proved completely right. So many stories of kidnapping and murder that even for the most well travelled of people, this part of Mexico is just a no go. In El Paso (the Mexican one) there were 1,800 murders last year alone. The drug lords and cartels are going bananas at each other creating an incredibly unstable place and one where an English fire engine may not be at all welcome.

Another big day on the road. Stage 8 is huge on the mileage route and sits along stage 1 as the stage for the biggest average daily miles. Napping is back on the agenda though this is made trickier due to the amount of stuff in the back of the cab at the moment. It is like an crazy little office in the back with laptops, books, cameras and random stuff making it pretty intense and difficult for snoozing. Saying that, if you are this tired you can pretty much sleep with someone punching you in the face.

Love and kisses.

Shabby Steve

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