Las Pinas, Texas

In order to position ourselves for a quick load, we deadheaded from Laredo to Houston on Monday. About 30 minutes into the trip, we ran into a roadblock due to an accident (it was a very bad accident, btw). Highway 59 was shut down for nearly an hour while emergency people did their thing. In another state, we would probably have detoured around it and continued on our way. But this is South Texas. A detour around that wreck would have entailed an 80 mile jaunt; it made more sense to sit and wait. Almost everyone did the same. In all that time, only 40 or so vehicles backed up.

The GPS said we were in Las Pinas, Texas, but Google Maps can't find a town by that name. Just look up Laredo in Maps - and yes, it really is that desolate. I love Texas. :)

I Met the Awesomest Lady at This Laundromat ...

Picture a diminutive Korean woman, dressed in a peace-sign printed long sleeved shirt, under a thick grey vest and capped with a purple knitted hat (with painted eyebrows to match), grey sweats on the lower half and grey plastic crocs as shoes, her smile lit up the entire laundromat. she was very friendly and talkative, and shared personal details that merely endeared her to me, stories of her son and daughter almost battling over her eventual residence...but she was torn between the P&L of the business and satisfying two kids in towns hundreds of miles apart, while still welcoming  customers from 30 years ago. I gave her a Canadien two-ney, knowing she'd never seen one before, as an alleged 68th birthday present. She was so psyched that she immediately shared her new acquisition with her husband.

West Texas

Dust storm on our way to El Paso. It made national.news, FWIW.