After spending the night in Amarillo (where my dad suggested that we get back home by way of Maine), we got back on the road. Like last night, though, there serendipity in navigating Amarillo's confusing street layout: we saw from our car the Cadillac Ranch, which is a number of upended Cadillacs, trunks to the sky, half-buried in dirt. It is the exhibition of Stanley Marsh III, a man who got involved with the pop art craze. He also reportedly has purchased a number of billboards in the Amarillo area, posting on them bizarre and cryptic messages. We saw none of the latter, but got a good glimpse of the former.

The roads down into Lubbock and then away from Lubbock towards the New Mexico border had more than their fair share of unbanked curves - with no signs to warn of these curves. On the contrary, speed limit signs were abundant, but in weird locations: sometimes 70-MPH speed limit signs would be smack-dab in the middle of a tight curve. On straightaways through towns the speed limit would go 70-65-60-55-40-35 with only maybe a hundred yards in between changes - then it'd go back up to 70 again. Every little town was generally the same: a grain processing factory (or some other factory, such as a chemical one), which the railroad ran through, and some buildings around it.

We never did see the Texas welcome area, but we did stop at a rest area outside of Lubbock. It was actually very up-to-date, and even included a tornado shelter somewhere inside. (We couldn't find it, and I postulated that they only open it during storms.)

Scenery changed from dry brush to nearly flat desert when crossing into New Mexico, though New Mexico's desert is still rolling hills with dots of sage. We even saw a tumbleweed when we were nearing Carlsbad. A curve in the road three miles ahead looked like it was maybe a hundred yards ahead. There were also small mountains in the background - mere foothills of the Rockies. Also of note in the New Mexico desert were salt flats, interspersed intermittently between signs that directed truckers to the potash mines. New Mexico is also in Mountain Time: three time zones down, one to go.

In the New Mexico desert, there were trains that must have extended out to over a mile in length, down in valleys and so far away that we could see their entirety without having to move our eyes or heads. In Carlsbad - which has a downtown area with Adobe-style buildings described as "cute" by my mom (high praise) - there is a dried-up canal that must only work when it floods.

Tomorrow: breakfast at 6:00 and Carlsbad Caverns by 7:30 at the very latest. This was the last big travel day for a while - tomorrow begins the touring of the natural scenery that is so abundant in this section of the country.