The Valley of the World

"He [Dean] took the wheel and flew the rest of the way across the state of Texas, about five hundred miles, clear to El Paso, arriving at dusk and not stopping except once when he took all his clothes off, near Ozona, and ran yipping and leaping naked in the sage." - On the Road.

This picture was taken today somewhere near Ozona when we stopped for a bite of lunch by the road en route from Austin to El Paso, where we arrived a little after dusk this evening. However, we did keep our clothes on and didn't run "yipping and leaping in the sage."

Once again a very full day, and a very long day as we drove from new friends Misty & Brian, and their sons Robert & Ewan, in Austin where we arrived after midnight last night, to El Paso this evening. We arrived so late in Austin partly because we stayed in New Orleans to partake in the delights of "King Cake" seen below, bought direct from the bakers Angelo in Metairie, New Orleans.

We set off north along Highway 61 retracing the route Jack & Neal would have taken in 1949 - not the main interstate and therefore not the quickest route, but one that allowed us to drive right by the bayou, what Kerouac called "these evil swamps," and witness the rich wildlife of birds, turtles and Sean even saw an alligator sunning itself on a log - not what we're used to seeing by the side of the road! At Baton Rouge we headed west on route 190, crossing the Mississippi River at Port Allen and then on heading for Beaumont, Texas and beyond that Houston before making our way with the assistance of our new companion "Jane" to Austin.

Today has been a very long drive - 938km - right across the state of Texas, mainly across the desert, and it is hard to convey the majesty of the terrain through which we have been travelling. We stopped numerous times and took many pictures, but somehow whatever filled the frame only tells a fraction of the story in terms of the visual assault upon our eyes of the vastness of this land. Notwithstanding that, here is a sample of our snapshots along the road:



































We thought maybe a way of showing something of the experience in terms of all that surrounded us as we moved along might be through a short video clip. So as an experiment, let's see how this works:



"I woke up just as we were rolling down the tremendous Rio Grande Valley through Clint and Ysleta to El Paso.... To our left across the vast Rio Grande spaces were the moorish-red mounts of the Mexican border, the land of the Tarahumare; soft dusk played on the peaks. Straight ahead lay the distant lights of El Paso and Juarez, sown in a tremendous valley so big that you could see several railroads puffing at the same time in every direction, as though it was the Valley of the World. We descended into it." - On the Road.