Here is the picture of west Texas.
There's no need to take another one, it always looks like this. It looked like this most of yesterday, and all day today. I know for a fact in two days I go over a mountain, so it will have to look different.
I am in Kermit. After this, there are no services whatsoever until El Paso. It is 228 miles to El Paso. In the towns between here and El Paso there are 240 people.
I'm going to turn off Allen's cell phone once I lose coverage, and not turn it on until I'm about 40 miles from El Paso.
I've been half dreading and half eagerly anticipating this leg of the trip. I have enough food, water, and cooking fuel for a week. I'm probably overprepared.
The weather forecast is looking good. Highs around 70, lows in the 40s, no rain until Monday, it's not a big chance then. The rain passed through this morning, and it was only a brief shower while I was eating breakfast back in Crane at the "American restaraunt", as opposed the the three Mexican restaraunts.
Lunch was at a very popular Mexican place in Monahans. Kermit and Monahans are both oil towns. They are both pretty big, they have 7000 people or so, but they are still dumps. I ate dinner at the cafe next door to the motel. It was a dump, and it was packed with chain smokers. There were less bad smells today.
There is wildlife out here, and it's exactly what you would expect. I saw two wily coyotes and a roadrunner. I also saw another pyrrhuloxia and a phainopepla, too. There used to be a lot of deer, but there haven't been any deer since there haven't been any trees. The most common roadkill is skunk.
Here is the route travelled for today.
