Arizona

I awoke early and headed west into Arizona. My first stop was at the petrified forest national park, amazing. Trees of stone. So well preserved that you can see every knot, every twist in the grain, every growth ring. From there I drove to the meteor crater. Strangely it is not a national park as I had believed, but is privately owned. Boom. Right in the middle of the flat plain rises this giant crater. From there I drove north to the Grand Canyon. I climbed down over the safety railings and clinging like a gecko to the rocks made my way several hundred yards down into the canyon. From there I could view the canyon undisturbed by the thousands of tourists.
It was the perfect time of day, the sun was setting and the clouds pushing by cast changing shadows on the canyon floor. As evening drew to a close I left the canyon and drove south west to the little town of Kingman where I rented a hotel room and slept on a bed for the first time in over 3 years. The next day I got ready for my drive into Nevada.

Carlsbad to Roswell

I reached Carlsbad a little to late in the day to see the cave but 2 hours before the bats were scheduled to exit the cave in a funnel cloud of shrieking glory. So I picked a spot on the concrete steps and waited, and waited, and waited. I listened to the park ranger give a talk all about bats. How they really live off moths, not mosquitoes and how they are all dying off, (due to factors such as pesticides killing all their native food, and possibly the signals emitted by cell phone towers.) Finally the time came, sunset, that magical time when tens of thousands of bats would rush above our heads into the darkening sky. "Here they come!" cried the park ranger.

5 bats fluttered up out of the cave and away to the south. Yes, I waited 2 hours for 5 bats.

The next morning I awoke with the sun, as I always seem to do when camping out, and soon found my way into the depths of carlsbad Caverns. If you haven't been there you should go. I loved the old smell of the cave, the cool darkness, the total silence.

From Carlsbad I drove north towards Roswell. A few miles outside of town my cars doorbell started going off for no reason. Very loud and it would not stop. I spent an hour on the side of the road tearing my car limb from limb trying to get it to stop. I ended up plunging my arm deep into the dash of my car and ripping the offending speaker loose. Problem solved. But then I thought...Roswell...strange electrical problems with my car...yep, you guessed it, ALIENS HAD INVADED MY CAR!!! Had to be right? Upon reaching Roswell I dropped by the Alien Museum. It was by far the best 5 $ I spent the entire trip. Lets just say that an old warehouse filled with manikins dressed as government scientists has never been more fun.

Form Roswell I headed north on highway 285 to Albuquerque, then due west on highway 40. I spent the night in the town of Gallup and the next morning I crossed the border into Arizona.

Texas

So I left New Orleans and spent the night just west of Houston Texas. Texas was bare dry nothingness for 1,200 miles.
I was going 85 mph in the wilderness between San Antonio and Fort Stockton when my tire exploded. Not just a flat. It sounded like a shotgun blast. Huge shreds of tire went peeling away down the road behind my car. I was able to slow down and pull over. A quick tire change and I was on my way.

I drove till I saw an exit. Several miles off the freeway I reached a small town that was in the worst shape of any town I saw on my trip. Paint was peeling, everything was rusty, tumble weeds littered the streets. The local supermarket parking lot actually had overturned shopping carts that had began to drift over with sand.
Walking around in the local grocery I overheard two old women talking. "all kind a strangers in town now-i-days", "yep, surenuff, its that highway's been bringin' em in 's wat it is." I didn't turn around to look but something tells me they were looking at me.
I purchased a new spare tire and headed north along highway 285 to Carlsbad New Mexico.