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United States of America

Dallas to Amarillo, Texas to Santa Fe, New Mexico, U.S.A.

It was nice to leave overcast Dallas and get out on the road.  I got lost on the Dallas freeways several times again.  The GPS kept turning itself off.  But eventually I found the correct freeway and then the highway north toward Amarillo.  The weather turned out to be beautiful the further north I got.  I guess Dallas was getting some of the rain from Hurricane Alex which hit northern Mexico that night.  
The highway went through several rural cities and towns – some with populations as low as the 300s.  It kind of felt I was going through the real Texas.  Places such as Decatur, Rhome, Bowie, Clarendon, Quanah, Memphis (not the Tennesse one!), Childress and Claude.  In one place I asked a girl in a restaurant for some ‘take away’ food and she seemed completely perplexed.  After explaining I wanted to take the food with me she said ‘oh you mean “to go”‘ and had a little giggle at me.  About three quarters of the way there I needed to get petrol so I pulled into a ‘gas station’.  When I looked at the pump I couldn’t work out how to use it.  So I asked a lady on the other side of the pump and she admitted she didn’t usually come to this station and she didn’t know either.  Together we worked it out with a queue of cars forming behind us.  The lady asked where I was from and said we had cute accents!  

Categories
United States of America

Texas, U.S.A.

Almost 28 hours after I left my house I finally arrived in Dallas, Texas.
The day got off to a slow start when United Airlines decided to delay the flight by an hour and forty minutes.  Liberace was flying the plane (ok it only sounded like him) and I had a pleasant surprise when I ran into an ex student on the Melbourne to Sydney leg.  David was on his way to New York to teach and take some dance classes.
The Sydney to Los Angeles sector ended up leaving 2 hours late but arrived only one hour late.  Oh my God this flight seemed to take forever.  I sat next to a lovely young man who was a Phd student on his way to Canada to present his paper on conservation.  I ended up watching 3 movies with sound and one without.  I just couldn’t sleep even though I was exhausted.  The first movie was Valentine’s Day (a lot of dribble).  The second was Ghost Writer (a Roman Polanski film), the third was Invictus.  The fourth I never caught the title but it had Brendan Fraser and Harrison Ford.  Without the dialogue I got that Brendan Fraser had some sick children and Harrison Ford was trying to find a cure.
On the Los Angeles to Dallas leg again I was seated next to a lovely young man with dive in eyes. There is a God in Air Travel Heaven.  This flight was about 3 hours but went fairly quickly.
Ok so I’m here now.  Things that I have observed so far, are the Texans have really nice manners and they like big road signs.  Oh and they like big buildings with huge mirror type windows.  The people are also very friendly and genuinely interested in talking to an Australian.
I couldn’t keep my eyes open any longer so went to bed and looked forward to exploring the next day.  Night night…

Waiting at Melbourne Airport
Waiting at Melbourne Airport
Map of Texas
Map of Texas