road tripping in the american sw

we’re making some major drives from leakey, tx to bellingam. the first day was to las cruces. it’s funny, so much of texas is not worth seeing for more than a few minutes, but when you pass into n.mexico it’s obvious. It’s just prettier. The air is clear and and the desert sky is crisp and the food is great. i'm seriously addicted to new mexican chile. red or green hatch valley chile sauce on enchiladas, eggs, ice cream.

utah is also gorgeous. all the little towns look the same - they're all these perfect little towns nestled against the small mountains/big hills that run through the middle of utah. the streets are clean and quiet. the houses are well maintained and the mormon churches are spotless and always surrounded by new little sub-divisions. a little too perfect. kinda scary. we stayed in the town of nephi, south of provo on our way through. after spending too much money on fancy/mid-range hotels in las cruces and flagstaff, we found a 1950s hotel with big, quiet rooms and broken neons out front. nice and cheap. we were especially thankful that we had not tried to make it into provo - apparently it was byu graduation and all the hotels were full. not to mention cheney was in town for the commencement speech. almost as scary as the recent rollingstone article that interviews right-wing christian groups willing to vote for a mormon republican for the '08 presidential election to punish centrist republicans for not sticking to "family issues"! yikes.