The Agnew Family aboard the "Dog House"

I’m not totally sure why but we decided that we would head straight to Big Bend National Park in Texas from Arizona skipping New Mexico (I guess we’ll have to see it next year). The drive was split into a long day and a shorter day. This being the case we thought a Wal-Mart parking lot would be a good place to stay. They only problem was there aren’t a lot of Wal-Marts between the New Mexico border and Big Bend as there are almost no towns. After much research we found a Wal-Mart in Fort Stockon — 8 hours of driving time at highway speeds. This translated into a 12 hour day as we stopped a couple of times and drove slower than the posted 75 mph speed limit.

When we went to the Western Horizon spiel the previous day each couple was given a cheque for $50 (the pamphlet indicated that but we didn’t expect it, we were just happy getting 3 nights free). As we don’t have US bank accounts we searched the internet for a branch of Western Horizon’s bank that was on our route. We found one in a small town in New Mexico. Margaret and I were amazed at how easy it was to cash our cheques — two pieces of ID (one of them picture ID) and a thumb print. Does this mean we are in database somewhere and can be tracked?

We also saw one unusual thing while we were driving — a man walking on the side of the highway carrying a large cross. Does anyone know what that’s about?

The Wal-Mart RV park was fine and I was actually surprised at the number of RV’s in the lot for the night. Ed was not a happy camper though as he noticed the right front tire on the truck was low — taking a closer look he found a nail in it. As he had some tire goop he put it in the tire and it appeared to do the trick.