Texas

After leaving California (so sad to leave the Pacific!) we took off to get back on track with our scheduled stop in Austin, spending the night briefly in El Paso before heading to Austin (I hear the slogan here is "Keep Austin Weird"). Driving through Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas was frankly not that interesting, especially the drive from El Paso to Austin, but not everywhere can be interesting. For most of that ride I caught up on reading the last Harry Potter.
It was weird being so close to the border of Mexico in El Paso....there were a number of cars with Mexican plates and everything was in both Spanish and English. On our way to Austin we had to go through a random border patrol, where the guy on patrol simply asked us if we were American citizens, and with a yes and a nod, we were on our way - is this a bit worrisome for anybody?
We have definitely entered Bible country, where mega churches populate the roadside every mile (or even less). Julianne even commented that for some, you can't really tell them apart from the gas stations and stores from the way they look from the highway. However, Austin seems quite liberal, especially around the U Texas campus. It would be nice to spend more time here, but again, it is somewhere that I can put on my list of places to return to someday.