USA Road Trip Day 6

Departure: Cypress, TX
Arrival: El Paso, TX
Hours: 12
Miles: 790.1
Gallons: 30.7

After three great days with Jeff an Holly, we are on the road again! For breakfast Jeff and Holly and Jeff's parents took us to Tony's. We followed them in our loaded down car for an hour towards our next stop on I-10. We stuffed ourselves with yet another meal, said our goodbyes, filled up with gas and took off. The first part of the trip was very flat with little to look at, but slowly, the rolling hills appeared with large rocks and boulders cut out to make the highway. Some of the trip even looked a little similar to the Faroe Islands, with the rock faces through the middle of many of the taller hills. Around lunchtime we were driving through San Antonio and decided to stop at the Alamo. I didn't even know the story, but learned that the Texans and Mexicans fought here, but that it had actually started as a mission, before being taken over by the Texan rebels. I can't imagine how scary it would have been to stay and fight, knowing that you were going to die a bloody death. Lots of very brave men. Texans are so patriotic! They LOVE their state, their flag, their food, their history, their Lone Star and important places, such as the Alamo. Even my waffle, for breakfast, was made into the shape of Texas! The driving went by really quickly today, but I can't believe that we drove 12 hours and still didn't make it out of Texas!!! There were border patrol everywhere. During the last part of our drive, we were right beside the Mexican border and could see the city lights of Ciudad Juarez. I always thought that the border would have huge cement walls with bright lights and police protecting us, but all we saw was a dark area between us and them...since the sun had already gone down we couldn't tell what was there...or not there! Kind of scary since Ciudad Juarez has a bad reputation from all of the drug cartels and crime. I am always skeptical when Americans say somewhere is dangerous and usually am not scared to travel there, since many times it is just that people are over reacting. But, each person that we spoke to have said how dangerous Mexico is now, so we will be staying on this side of the border!