The last few days

After our stay in Natchez, MS, we headed home. Any sane person would have looked at a trip of 1,450 miles and about 20 1/2 hours as one that should take three days of driving about 500 miles a day. We were motivated to get home a little quicker as there was nothing between Natchez and Mesa for us to do. Also, we were "fleeing" the potential hurricane in Louisiana/Mississippi and had some concern about the bad weather and tornados in the midwest which at the time were predicted to go as far south as Oklahoma. So we headed out of Mississippi and up through Louisiana to Shreveport. Louisiana is a very green and wet area. Lots of lakes all over. Then we hit Texas and Texas is a big state. We tried to get through Dallas/Fort Worth before the rush hour. We were successful at first, hitting Dallas around 3:30, but did get caught in a traffic jam in Fort Worth. Once through, we found the area of Texas west of of Dallas/Fort Worth on I-20 and I-10 to be pretty stark. Lots of dirt and signs indicating that "zero visibility may exist" on the road. We made it all the way to Midland, which was about 700 miles and we were on the road close to 12 hours. While exhausting, once there we knew we were in striking distance of Arizona and at a minimum able to get to Tucson, if not home to Mesa. We doubted getting to Mesa, but then a wonderful thing happened. The speed limit went up to 80 miles per hour. You see, Texas does have some redeeming qualities. The trip was 750 miles and took us about 9 hours, even though we hit some very strange traffic in El Paso at noon on a Saturday. We were also aided by the fact that we picked up two time zones so were were able to finish in daylight. Unfortunately, the prior day we traveled right into the sun and then had to fight through dusk. We were taken with the beauty of New Mexico, which is much like Arizona and enjoyed the sights although they were not particularly beautiful.