December 9, 2009

Moved right on on a cold but beautiful day through Dallas then switched to I-20 and headed towards El Paso, stopping in Van Horn for the night. Talking about a boring, boring drive. There is nothing for hundreds of miles then cotton fields along the highway and then changing to brown dirt and nothing else. Maybe an occasional cactus. But oh so dry!
It is amazing that there are ever so often little villages or just a gathering of huts and mobile homes.
What are people doing out here? There is NOTHING! Here and there an oil pump and that is it.
This was for sure the longest day. When there is nothing to see the miles seem to go by much slower. Nothing to look at then a very straight road. The speed limit is a crazy 80 miles/hr and for semi trucks 70 miles. That is insane. David drove between 70 and 75 because of me griping when he hit 80 and we got overtaken by those huge tractor trailers up to 24 wheels. Fudge, that is like an avalanche taking you over, scary! Anyway was glad when we checked in this little motel at the bud of the world.
While we were driving we got also a call from Michael regarding our new house. There was an issue because the house is in a residential zone and we weren't sure if we could have chickens and goats. Our acceptance of the offer depends on that we could have small livestock. Michael researched at the city's office and couldn't get a straight answer so he asked the seller to pay a lawyer to interpret the zoning of the property. It came to it that theoretically we can't have livestock but could file for a conditional use permit to change that. The city will send a letter to our neighbors to find out if they would be okay with us having animals. So David told Michael that I would not want to buy the house without being permitted to have chickens and goats. The alpacas we will add when the dust has settled. Anyhow, David asked Michael if he could go and chat with the neighbors a bit and feel them out since he knows the ones on the right and him being a local. Michael agreed and will get back to us tomorrow. Poor man, he will have earned his commission by the time we are done with him!