Where to Now???

There were three factors that contributed to our decision to head back south out of Santa Fe the next morning.

1) The temperature had gotten down close to freezing the previous night. Mom had developed a serious phobia about living anywhere cold during those two winters we spent in Winnipeg. Every time the topic came up she would say (in a thick Hungarian accent): "But vee don't heff any vinter coats!"... That chilly night in Santa Fe was enough to convince mom we were heading in the wrong direction.
2) We made a quick pass through downtown and it just didn't feel right.
3) Karina was still whining incessantly about going to El Paso.

So we got back on interstate 25 heading south - past Albuquerque - and once again through that 250 miles of sheer boredom down to Las Cruces - then on to El Paso. We got there in the early afternoon and exited onto a surface street heading toward downtown. It quickly became obvious why so many people refer to El Paso as the armpit of Texas... Yeah - none of us liked it...

We briefly considered going back to Albuquerque but the thought of driving through that long stretch of nothing - again - was too much much to bear. We'd come that far so we figured we might as well just keep going east. We spent the next 50 miles on interstate 10 arguing about where we were heading next. The list of potential destinations was reduced significantly when mom missed the cutoff to interstate 20 and we ended up on the road to San Antonio... C'est la vie :-)
BTW: West Texas is where the desert gradually yields to rugged plains. It might not be the most interesting terrain on earth but there was definitely something appealing about the open spaces - and it sure beat the heck out of central New Mexico :-)

Aside: The whole time we'd been on the road Karina had been amusing herself thinking up alternate interpretations for billboards and road signs. (She was the master.) And as we were heading into Texas Karina said something like "Look - there's another 'End Construction' sign. I really don't understand why so many people have a problem with construction!". I'm embarrassed to admit that it took a while for it to occur to me that she was interpreting it as a protest sign (like "End the War")... I was amused once I figured it out :-)

We stopped in Fort Stockton for the night (not a bad little place). And as we were relaxing after the day's drive we played one of our usual games: We'd pick a letter and take turns naming towns or places that started with that letter until someone (the loser) couldn't think of one... We were on the letter "P" and had gone through all the usual suspects when mom came up with "Ponto Beach"... Karina and I immediately started laughing and Karina said something like "Mom - if you're going to cheat at least make something up that doesn't sound totally ridiculous!"
We teased mom mercilessly for months over that one - and all the while mom kept insisting that there really was such a place. (This was decades before such questions could be quickly answered by Google.) Karina even made up stories about the "Ponto Beach Ant Hill Patrol" - a brave group of young men who went out every night wearing goggles and flippers to make sure that no ants were nesting on the beach... Yes - many ballads had been written to honor those legendary heroes - they had even been awarded presidential medals for their tireless efforts to keep the beach safe for sunbathers... (Karina had a strange imagination.)
Epilogue: In August of 1972 Karina and I were on an extended road trip (another long story) and as we passed through Encinitas (on highway 101) we saw the "Ponto Beach" sign... Needless to say we apologized profusely to mom when we got back to Dallas... But I'm getting ahead of myself :-)

Before we left Fort Stockton in the morning we took a long look at the map and decided that the Gulf Coast might be nice (despite the potential for hurricanes) and set our sights on Corpus Christi.

There's only one incident I recall remember from that day's drive: We stopped at a gas station in the middle of nowhere and went to the restrooms and when we came back out the station attendant said "Did ya know y'all got a flat tire???" And sure as heck - one of our back tires had sidewall damage and was almost flat. Luckily - the guy happened to have a tire that fit the car - and we marveled at how lucky we were that the tire didn't go flat until after we stopped in the station...
Yeah - it wasn't until years later that it dawned on me that that we'd probably been scammed :-)

We bypassed San Antonio on Loop 410 blissfully unaware that a mere 3 years and 2 months later I would undergo Air Force basic training less than a mile from that loop... And after 4 days on the road we pulled into Corpus Christi flat broke and seriously in need of rest...