Arkansas to Texas to New Mexico

We left Hot Springs Wednesday morning and settled in for the longest day of driving to get to Midland, TX. I think it was about 9 hours. Through Arkansas I got a good look at the rice and forestry industries. As I researched, I learned that Arkansas is most known for poultry but I didn't see any of that in the parts where we were.

We were lucky to make it around Dallas without any slowdowns. I actually visited Midland/Odessa in the 1980's when I was working for KPMG. I was sent there to do an IT audit. It was at a severe down period in the oil industry and I had never seen such a depressing place. Today it's booming! There are oil and gas workers everywhere and the economy is strong. There's also a big investment in that area in solar and wind. It was kind of depressing to see so many windmills not working. I'd say only about 30% were actually working. Anyway, it was all interesting.
​

While looking around for interesting things, I discovered that Odessa has a replica of Stonehenge. We just had to check it out before leaving town. It's at the University of Texas Permian Basin and was built in 6 weeks in 2004.

I wouldn't make a special trip but if you are near Odessa you should go to see it.

After that visit we were off to White Sands National Park. We drove I20 and I10 through El Paso and then north to Alamogordo. We got to go through a border crossing station and saw part of the border wall near El Paso. El Paso looks like a very interesting city and I think it would be fun to explore if we are ever back in this corner of the country. 
​

White Sands National Park is amazing. If you have never done so, look it up in Google maps to see the satellite view of this wonder.  The size is hard to describe. It reminds me of the vastness of Yellowstone and the Grand Canyon. The white sand is gypsum and it's as far as you can see. The park is only part of the total sand area. Much of it is a government missile testing range. Chris' Dad actually worked here some when he worked on missile development after he retired from the Navy.  When you visit the park you have to check the testing schedule because occasionally a road to the park might be closed. It's not something that happens very often but it does occasionally happen.
​

Here are a few more photos.
​

Of course you can't go anywhere anymore without running into some girls ( always girls) doing photo sessions for social media. These three were out there at least a half hour just posing for photos. It seems like a colossal waste of time  but to each her own.

On the crochet front I'm making steady progress on all of my projects. Here's the wheelchair blanket so far. I've worked on it for 2 days.
​

This is the shawl that I started. I finished up the partial cake and set it aside for now. I have 2 more cakes and I know I can get finish this one and get one more made with the remaining cakes.
​

I decided to start the second shawl and to see how far I get with one whole cake. Then I'll know how much of the last cake to allocate to each.  So, I'm making progress all around.

​Today we finally head to Tucson where we can sleep in the same bed for 2 whole weeks and cook some meals in a real kitchen!