MOVIN' ON TO TEXAS

      It's hard to leave Utah's spectacular Canyonlands. You're exiting God's version  Disneyworld knowing everything beyond will be a little less amazing. 

     Winding down from a sprawling mesa we camped in a park we'd never heard of "Hovenweep". 

 
 It was next to a small canyon that the natives had ringed with dwellings hundreds of years ago.
            OUR CAMPSITE DWELLING
   In the distance we could see what looked like an Indian, four miles long, protected by a puffy gray blanket.

         
              In the morning we passed this metal recycling facility in Blanding, Utah, strictly for the birds.

    Driving south towards New Mexico we passed Mesa Verde, Four Corners and the cowboy movie main stay, Ship Rock. Perched on flatness, you can see it looming large for an hour before you pass.

     I had never been to Cuba until this adventure. Funny, the folks inside never heard of cafe con leche.
Camping in the hills outside of Cuba, New Mexico, we happened upon a group of camouflaged hunters.  They blew mating calls on their elk horns, practicing for the beginning of elk season just hours away.  The men were very friendly as they explained that they might be killing bear and mountain lions too.
    As we set up to camp nearby, they warned us to keep a tree or two between us and any mother elk as "they are very protective of their young". 
     We had a 400-mile drive to Texas the next day.  We headed out very early to avoid  the mother elk and the bullets chasing their husbands. 
     Towards the end of our drive, outside of Fort Sumner, NM, I saw a sign directing me to the grave of Billy the Kid.  Francesca was asleep so I figured, "What the heck".
   A few minutes later, heading down the side road I thought, "What am doing? Looking for the grave of some punk who killed 8 people 130 years ago".
    Then I saw the metallic teepee, a  memorial to the 10,000 Navajo Indians who were force to walk 400 miles from their Colorado home to this desert dump. After 3000 of them died on "The Great Walk"and their subsequent incarceration at Fort Sumner, the U.S. Calvary herded them off to another, less-horrid, reservation.  
     Why gangsta' Billy gets all the attention is a good lesson in American revisionist history.
I later learned his gravestone has been stolen twice.  Note: Should you steal it again, please don't put it in our backyard.

     This day was meant to get us to one to one of the coolest places in America, the home of rock n' roll legend Buddy Holly in Lubbock, Texas. 
  
The Cactus Theater in Lubbock where Buddy Holley and the Crickets once performed.

    Like Billy, Buddy died young. We knew the city had created a spanking new "music center" for his fans and we had to be there.

Air BnB lesson: check locations carefully, we ended up in Kendall-like suberb in Lubbock.  

Downtown Lubbock was
lots of fun. We strolled around, bought peppers and pumpkins at their farmers market, then headed to Buddy's museum the moment it opened.

                    Leaning on the museum's gigantic Buddy Glasses

The converted train station had all his guitars and memorabilia. Next door we toured the house where he wrote "Peggy Sue".  We saw it all including a somber glass showcase. Inside, perched on a pedestal, were Buddy's glasses recovered from the 1959 plane crash site. 

     After a couple of hours we headed south, staying ahead of a looming storm, to make our way to another great Texas music city, Austin.
                  ___________________
   
Preferring coffee to Coke