In our original plan, we were going to visit some close friends in Taos, New Mexico, but winter reared its ugly head and it was snowing. We really weren’t prepared for snow so we decided to skip Taos and drive across Texas.

We decided to find someplace half way across west Texas to stop for the night. Unfortunately, that was Fort Stockton, Texas.

When we left Tucson, we drove south and east towards El Paso. Neither of us have ever been there before but we didn’t stop since we wanted to get to our destination because it was 556 miles away. El Paso is the last big city before nothing that is West Texas. Mike wanted to see the “fence”. There really wasn’t much to see. Don’t really understand if it does anything at all.

We finally arrived in Fort Stockton. We stayed at a La Quinta because there are only a couple of hotels available; none with good ratings.

We probably should have stayed at the Hampton Inn. La Quinta was just sad. Again, the front desk individual was very nice but the place was in need of serious updating. It was also very noisy so we heard everyone moving around, all of the trucks going by on the Interstate.

Basically, we left by 5:00 AM because we weren’t sleeping and we were worried about our trikes on the car…even though they were right outside the door.

Dinner was another issue. Where do you eat in a town that has basically no restaurants? Again, I looked up restaurants on line and found Rix barbeque.

Oh my! I read a quote from someone who supposedly at there that said “his BBQ joint is really good. The food is fresh and had just the correct amount of spice rub. The spare ribs were very good as well as the brisket and sides” Well, sometimes you can’t trust reviews. The restaurant was really a cafeteria, the food wasn’t really cooked there, well maybe it was, but it was kept on a warmer. This place was inside of a weird, junky mall-like place.

There are auto parts and used books along with the food. The best thing about it was the price which was very reasonable. I was just glad we didn’t get sick. Mike is still surprised I was willing to eat there. Probably, the best bet would be to eat at the Dairy Queen.

Needless to say, were very happy to get on the road even though it was quite foggy.