Milan, New Mexico

The last time i was in Milan, New Mexico was right after I got this truck and was headed to Memphis from Long Beach with a truck load of X-Boxes. It is different now. Lightly powdered in places with snow and COLD. Today was not so bad, high around 50 but then as night falls so too does the temperature. The low tonight looking to be right around 0. North of here in Alamosa, Colorado the low will be more on the order of 30 below.
Earlier today i got a flurry of messages on the qualcomm. First saying I should swap the load with a driver in Winslow, Arizona. Then that i should take it to its final destination in Ontario, California (which I would have liked as it would be a hell of a long load (about 2700 miles) and would take me through the New Years holiday thus avoiding any possible delays because of the holidays (it is hard to get loaded on a day when no one is working)). The nuts in Omaha finally decided that what they wanted me to do was take it to Phoenix, which is not so bad, a load of 2300 miles and to a somewhat warmer place but it does leave me with lot of time that will undoubtedly be killed on the first day of 2008.

From Oklahoma a fine, though long, somewhat boring and very light brown day. The early part in darkness since I left at 3:45, thinking, as i did then, that i was trying to get to Albuquerque by midday. The sunrise over the Texas panhandle was pleasant. the flat expanses, and eroded arroyos. Gradually the land gets (somehow) even more drawn out, more vast and desolate and you cross the invisible line into New Mexico. High mountains just before Albuquerque were dusted with snow and a strong wind out of the north all day tried to push me into the fast lane.
Some pictures:
Texas Panhandle













Grain Storage (the iPhone has an odd but sometimes appealing way of distorting the images taken from a moving truck) somewhere in Texas








snow in the mountains east of Albuquerque