Disaster!

Awoke to find our Visa card had been compromised somewhere in Nevada. Down here, most gas stations require foreigners to leave a card with them until they've filled up, or else ring up a fixed amount first. Dopey me, I'd always done the former. Some SOB swiped my number and used it to pay his utilities, which seems particularly dumb, and shouldn't be too hard for Visa to track down, but meanwhile we're stuck in here in bustling Van Horn, TX awaiting a temporary card to be delivered to our motel. We LIVE by that card, so this has been a major reset, and we were making such good time, too!

The only thing here of note is Chuy's Restaurant, which John Madden has declared his 'Hall of Fame'. He stopped by annually, in the Madden Cruiser, being afraid of flying, and has written about it often, as his favorite Mexican eatery. He even has a chair reserved for him in front of the big screen. (Jack told me that Madden conceived that yellow stripe they superimpose on TV to indicate the downs line, or whatever it's called. Clever!) Along with the memorabilia, Chuy's also has the largest collection of business cards I've ever seen, literally covering every inch of wall and ceiling space in the foyer and halls.

GETTING here was deceptively uneventful. 80 mph zones make for some swift travel: Arizona stays on standard time all year, so after 14 days without changing our clocks, we swept through two time zones yesterday. And $1.94/gal gas is easy on the wallet, even if some station staff are not. We passed by Roswell, NM without incident, and stopped near where Geronimo surrendered, ending the Indian wars in the US. Now East Indians own the motel, and have been very nice to us; and there are great smells coming from their quarters. We're sleeping between road and tracks again, unfortunately but at least the trains lay off the whistle when blasting by, and boy, do they blast by!