Day 3: The Freeway is Closed

Alright, I think I'm getting the hang of Shanti time. In Shanti time, no one wakes until well after sunrise and there's really no action until nearly noon. So, somewhere around 11 we got back on the road with the intention of making it to El Paso. Unfortunately, in order to get to El Paso, one must first pass through San Antonio. Now, I can't explain why or how it is, but each time Shanti takes the wheel, we drive through very trafficy urban environs with bad roads and confusing thoroughfares. Yesterday it was ...

No Dogs Allowed in Houston

and today it was ...

The Freeway is Closed in San Antonio.

For real. Traffic came to a complete stop and we gazed in shock at the long, very long, to the distant horizon, long ass line of traffic sitting in the Texas sun going nowhere. I think we edged about a foot every five minutes or so. Then the lanes began to diminish and of course the lanes we were in were the ones you had to vacate. Now, you know what it's like trying to get across tight traffic in a car. Now imaging doing the same thing in a mini-semi. No one wants to let you across and even though you could just barrel on over, you don't want to damage other cars in the process. Needless to say, it involved a lot of nail biting and pigging out on absolute crap cause there's no such thing as good food when you're on the road. As we edged along slower than the slowest snail, we came upon an exit and Shanti believed there must surely be a way around this mess and anything would be better than the mess we were in. So we exited, took a left, and headed up a mountain toward an out of season Six Flags park and a remote Westin Resort and Spa. I volunteered to go inside the resort and ask for directions. What I didn't know is I would need directions to just find my way around the resort. Sadly, after locating the concierge desk, I learned there's no other way around the nightmare on I-10 and that one must simply endure for two miles and then freedom can again be had. I then asked if the hotel allowed dogs.

"No".

So back down the mountain and back into the painfully slow traffic we crawled. We didn't know it at the time, but in a short while we would enter some of the most beautiful landscapes I had seen yet. The land stretched out in a big yawn, the skies opened wide, and we rode long, wide hills. I became peaceful, the dogs settled down, and Shanti snoozed. We decided to stop for the night in Sonora where the only restaurant in town was Pizza Hut. I've never eaten so much pizza in my life than I have over the passed three days. Ah well, tomorrow is another day. Stay tuned for more on

Shanti, Michael, Karma, and Zen's Incredible Cross Country Trip Out West Extraordinaire.