Day 3 Time Changes!

Day 3

Okay! Before I even start discussing our third day of travel toward Oklahoma, I have to tell you about an incident that actually was more humorous than detrimental, at most, annoying. But never-the-less, it can catch you off guard as you travel, and cause confusion, at the least.

As someone travels from state to state, it’s inevitable that with large distance travel from far east or west movement, you will go through time zones. With that, some states have daylight savings time, while others don’t change their clocks twice a year, and use only standard time California, Arizona to New Mexico can cause “Clock Dysphoria”, my coined term for “what time is it? Where? Here or back home?”

So, what happened? Ok, here it goes:

AS we settled into our hotel last night, we had an hour time change from California to Arizona. My alarm on my phone was set for 5:30 AM.

When it sounded off, I looked at the clock on the nightstand, and it said 4 30 AM. So, I figured my alarm got mixed up because of the time change, and I went back to sleep. I then woke up an hour later, and the desk alarm clock said 5:30 AM. But when I looked at my phone, it said 6:30 AM. We realized no one changed the nightstand clock to the new Arizona time. Lesson learned!: Trust your gear before trusting a stranger. Will tried to fix the nightstand clock to the correct Arizona time, but the nightstand was complicated. And so it stays an hour off the actual time.

Now an hour behind, we didn’t rush our pace as much as just stayed focused, took care of the cats, ate breakfast, filled up the truck with gas, and hit the road. Willcox, AZ to Midland, TX was an 8 hour drive, + stops and running an hour behind, it was going to be a long day.

Roads were flat and straight with a few construction projects slowing us down. Still driving at a good pace though. Interstate 10 drives right up to and along the border of The United States and MEXICO. Quite an eye opener. It was mid-November of 2024. The roads were very crowded with lines of cars waiting, what probably was hours, going in and out of Mexico. There was a stark contrast to the economics of the two countries on display. The United States had larger buildings, housing commerce and services, while Mexico was dense with houses. Although, I did like the colors of the houses much better than US gated housing communities with 37 shades of tan/brown.

Once we passed through El Paso, Texas, we continued to drive along the border moving slowly North to the point we weren’t able to see our southern neighbor. We headed toward Sierra Blanca, where we had a Thanksgiving Dinner at a small diner in 1985. We didn’t recognize any buildings, but one may have been the small roadside cafe that offered us a hot turkey, potatoes and cranberry sauce dinner that night. Now closed and quite dilapidated, it brought back memories of young age travel that only the youth can handle. The badly damaged building sits watching time move along, probably the victim of more efficient cars and box hotels, people would drive by, but not stop, leading to its eventual closure….well, that is our guess.

We then turned onto Highway 20 northeast. Again the roads were in good condition and dotted with road construction, nothing affecting our travel time as an issue. We entered Midland, as it was getting quite dark, but trusting our electronic map, it directed us to take Loop Road 250 up around Midland toward the north of town, to a Tru by Hilton. The hotel’s location ended up being much further off the highway than we thought. Never-the-less, it was an easy check in, offered breakfast in the morning, had room to park our truck and trailer, and was very quiet. A nice hotel, but due to its location off the main highway system, won’t stay again. Just as the people who traveled before us and not stopping in Sierra Blanca, tonight, we too were looking for a box hotel that offered amenities at a reasonable price.