Resupply stopover

We are at a Wal-Mart in El Paso, Texas (map), along I-10 toward the east end of town. This is a familiar stopover for us; in addition to the enormous Wal-Mart store itself, the Cielo Vista mall is right next door and sports an Olive Garden, where we had an early dinner.

We also browsed the mall on our walk back. I spent most of my time there at the Sprint booth, as my Blackberry is on its last legs, and I wanted to check out the three 4G Android options as possible replacements. I am on the fence between the HTC Evo 4G and the Samsung Epic 4G, and I'll need to make a decision before we reach California, where sales tax on cell phones is assessed on the unbundled price (ouch).

Today we will head into the store to restock our supplies before heading off in search of fuel. My research last night actually suggests we can find cheaper fuel in Nevada, but with nearly two weeks before we are there, that is almost certain to change. We'll fill up here at $3.30, and top off again in Nevada before heading into California, where fuel is at least 10% higher -- do you detect a theme here? We'll need more fuel today than we had projected, as we've been bucking 30mph headwinds for two days. Yesterday we dropped our speed to 55 to help with the mileage as well as the noise, which put us a full 25mph below the speed limit.

We have been in touch with fellow travelers Sam and Tracy of Zen Nomads, who are heading in this direction from Tucson via Tombstone. We've agreed to meet up somewhere in the middle tomorrow, and we are trying to nail down where that might be. That will somewhat dictate our route from here, but tonight we should end up either in Columbus, NM, near the border on NM-9, or somewhere near Deming on I-10. This morning I need to wrap up my submissions for next weeks Red Cross training before we leave, and we might run some other errands here in El Paso before we leave the city limits as well.

Photo by Cushing Memorial Library and Archives, Texas A&M, used under a Creative Commons license.