By the numbers:
- 253 miles from Roswell, NM to Odessa, TX – 2300 total miles
- highest temp: 91. – Coolest day of the trip – Also the first high humity -77% this morning.
- highest elevation: 3573 at Roswell where we started. Now at Odessa, TX = 2890 feet – I know people think Iowa is flat but there are many places much flater than Iowa and Western Texas is one of them.
- 2 states : New Mexico and Texas. Total for the trip: 8
- Licence plates spotted: 2 new states, South Carolina & Mississippi – 36 total for the trip plus 3 Canadian provinces.
- No new National Parks but 2 other stops.
- One Time Zone change from Mountain to Central. Remember to adjust your clocks.
We continued listening to our Audio Book – The Wright Brothers written and read my David McCullough. Excellent book and a fascinating story. We thought we had already learned a lot about the Wright brothers from previous reading and from visits to their bicycle shop in Dayton, Ohio, the site of their early flights at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, and many visits to the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum. However, the personal story told by McCullough is rich in details about the Wrights as people, much of which we had not heard before. Just one quote: When asked how to be successful, Wilbur wright said: “I would say choose good parents and begin life in Ohio.” Very humble advice.
Related to the ability to choose your parents or your ancestry in general, today we drove past the childhood home of George W Bush. We saw a lot of presid
ential homes when we were living in DC so are continuing to see others as we travel. In addition, George W is a distant cousin of mine. My only comment is that contrary to Wilbur Wright’s advice we don’t have any choice about who are parents or our blood relatives are.