Across the Rio Grande

All things come to an end, even Texas. All my way west my heart jumped as I crossed all the same things I had passed on my way east: the Pecos River, the Continental Divide, the Mississippi, Shoney's. Each landmark I went by brought me one step closer to home. (I was on a different route home, to the south of the route I took east, but the interstate highway crossed many of the same boundaries.)


Some cross the Rio Grande to go to Mexico. I crossed it after I was in New Mexico, hurtling west, the direction they say loose wheels roll.


After taking days to get through Texas, New Mexico seemed like hardly a blip before I was in Arizona. The last time I'd had to change my watch was when I left Georgia and hit Central Time in Alabama. On this day I changed my watch twice more--once when I hit the part of Texas that uses Mountain Time, and again when I hit Arizona, where (although they're on Mountain Time), they don't observe Daylight Savings, so in the summer the time is the same as California's.


And I must have missed a turn somewhere down in Phoenix, because suddenly looming up before me was a big sign that said "Welcome to California." Had I crossed the Colorado too?