3138 miles...

Stayed the night at Days Inn in Vinnie Texas, got my 8 hours of sleep and the humidity has to be 100% here.

After my stop at the Denny's on 8/6 I decided I would drive at night for awhile and make up some miles. During the night trucks own the road, big rigs hauling goods across the state and even though the regular speed limit is 80 during the night it is posted at 65 even though none of them drive that speed.
I saw some beautiful lightning storms all around me (be careful what you wish for) they lit up the night sky like a giant switch being turned off and on, there were far enough away I did not have to worry about them bu they were quite impressive. As I passed through El Paso I saw the big Texas star on the side of the hill, everything in Texas is big.

About an hour later after the storms passed I saw this red glow in the clouds on the left side of the road and as I got closer I saw there was a fire in the hills that had been started by the lightning, it was quite a blaze and shows you how potent a bolt of lightning can be.

I drove until 2 am but had to stop for the night, most places were booked up due to an oil company and stock car races on the same day but I finally found a Holiday Inn Express with one room available and crashed for the night.

8/7 After getting a few hours sleep I started off again, some things you should know about that.
The regular speed limit is 80 except at night when it drops down to 65 (no one drove 65 at night). If you own a muscle machine or stock ride come drive in Texas, everyone drives big gas guzzling machines, I saw more Escalades, trucks and monster rigs than I have seen in any other state, no one here seems to worry about high gas prices.

Texas is a contradiction at least in it's drivers, there are signs all over that state that say, "Drive Friendly", so I drove the speed limit and I was courteous but pretty much everyone on the road was not. Don't get me wrong the people I met on my stops were fine but when they get behind the wheel a switch turns on and it's everyone for themselves, I equated it to an episode of the old Star Trek series called, "Lazarus", that was for Ken.

Everyone drives there own way, I was stopped in traffic due to an accident further up and to my right about 5 trucks took off over the embankment to hit a lower road and get ahead of the traffic, and I saw more collisions and off road accidents than I did in any other state, at one point an officer was off the road working with one rear end collision while about about 200 feet ahead another group was waiting for the same officer for the one they just got in.
I had no desire to end up a statistic in Texas so I just crawled along in my own time and my own space.

I had no problem driving in California, Arizona or New Mexico but Texas was a challenge.
Leaving here soon to make my way toward New Orleans...