June 22, 2016

June 22, 2016

From San Antonio, we drove straight west till we hit the Rio Grande again to visit Amistad National Recreation Area. In 1954 a Gulf hurricane came ashore and dumped rain onto this parched land.  The flooding and destruction prompted Mexico and the USA to jointly build this dam.  It was named Amistad, Spanish for Friendship.  We can see evidence of the power of flash floods in a desert just west as we pass over the partially flooded canyon of the Pecos River.

From Amistad we drove the rest of the day across west Texas.  I am glad we had a full tank of gas since this is probably the most isolated and deserted section of the US.  We witnessed the "urban heat island effect" as we passed through El Paso and saw the outside temp jump fifteen degrees to 113F!  We ended the day in Old Mesilla outside Las Cruces, NM.