Aylmer Express "MoHo" Extravaganza 2006

Today we woke up to a very welcome sunny sky. Now that is more like it. It was to be another day of driving through areas we have never traversed. I have to admit that New Mexico has some unusual places. I already mentioned Roswell, which is famous for the infamous 1947 UFO incident. And it is also lesser known as the hometown of Demi Moore. Really. Then today I also had some rather unusual conversations. As we were driving down the highway today I hear A-P tell me that the guy who just past us in the truck had a huge antenna!?!? An antenna on the guy? Oh, the truck. Right. If you don’t know what I am taking about, do a Google search on Roswell. Also today I was listening to the radio and I hear them say they are broadcasting from Truth or Consequences, NM. Oh, I didn’t realize that they had contracted the naming of cities in New Mexico out to someone from Newfoundland. If you don’t know what I am talking about, take a look at a map of Newfoundland. Although most of our drive was pretty boring we did have a couple of highlights, the first of which was El Paso, Texas. We swung down through Texas on our way to Carlsbad, NM since that seemed to be the shortest and least mountainous way. Now El Paso is right on the border of Mexico, the country, so we purposely took the highway that passed closest to the border (read: we ignored the GPS) in hopes that we might see some of Mexico. We need not have worried. As we were driving along the multilane I-10 through downtown El Paso I told the kids to look out the window to the right since they should be able to see Mexico on the other side of the Rio Grande. It was difficult for me to take my eyes off the busy, winding highway to check out what it looked like but then I heard Morgan asking if the buildings that looked like shacks was Mexico. I looked a little closer and sure enough, the buildings on the Mexican side of the border were shabby looking, beaten up shacks in comparison to the buildings in El Paso which did not look much different than those found in any other medium-sized US city. All the buildings we could see up the side of the hill across the Rio Grande would have had a clear view of what things look like in El Paso. I is hard to imagine what it must be like living just across the border and being able to see the difference in affluence just across the border in the US. I have to admit I was a little shocked at the stark contract. I guess I just figured that the parts of Mexico that are close to the US border would be more developed or better off than what I saw. No wonder the US is dealing with a very large illegal immigration problem. Anyway, we made our way through El Paso and back out into the Texas desert this time. The best way I can describe our drive through west Texas would be … lonely. It somehow managed to look and feel more barren, desolate and secluded than any other area we have been through so far. For much of the trip we did not even have telephone poles to keep us company. This would not be a good place to have a mechanical failure, and luckily we didn’t. Then we had to make our way across the tail end of the Guadalupe Mountains but the MoHo, getting used to this type of abuse, was equal to the task and made it look facile. We ultimately made it to Carlsbad, NM. Why are we here? Good question. In a word, the answer is caves. Now you have two choices. You can wait until tomorrow when I fill you in more on that, or you can head back to Google. It is up to you!

Today’s word:

facile \FAS-uhl\, adjective:1. Easily done or performed; not difficult.2. Arrived at without due care or effort; lacking depth; as, "too facile a solution for so complex a problem."3. Ready; quick; expert; as, "he is facile in expedients"; "he wields a facile pen."