Sage brush, sand, and cell phone towers

That was pretty much what our day looked like ... and it looked like that for a very long time. We left the warmth of our room at the Hotel Emporio well before dawn in Zacatecas. In fact, at 6:45 AM, neither the coffee shop in the hotel nor the Starbucks a half block away was even open. So, we piled into the car and headed north, and headed north, and headed north.

There is not very much between Zacatecas and Chihuahua where were are tonight. Oh sure, there a number of towns ... Fresnillo, Gomez Palacio, and Delicias (what a delicious name for a town) ... but they are mostly forgettable spots (though Delicious did look like it might have potential).

So, lacking any glamorous details of European type cities with outstanding museums and culinary specialties, I'll have to stick with the sage brush, sand, and cell phone tower description for the day.

The roads we took today, mostly toll roads costing a total of $48US, are excellent highways, some much better than the interstates you find in California. Along the way there are plenty of Pemex gas stations (about $2.80 a gallon for regular), clean restrooms (U.S. gas stations could take a lesson from Pemex), and some OK restaurants. The Mexican version of 7-11 is Oxxo and, though they don't have Slurpees or Squishees, they've got everything else. There are also a few "Pits" along the highway.

The toll booths are very modern (hello, Caltrans), and the fees vary at each one ... anywhere from about a dollar to ten dollars. They accept the Mexican version of Fastrak.

As for navigation, we rely mostly of our Mexican map books, though this year, we bought a Garmin GPS Nuvi navigator with the Mexican maps. It's pretty good, but only pretty good. It will get you where you want to go, but maybe not the fastest route.

And, for entertainment, Sirius satellite radio ... a great signal all the way from Puerto Vallarta is allowing us to catch up on Howard Stern.

In an emergency, and there haven't been any, you can call a 3-digit code on your cell phone (yes, solid cell phone coverage everywhere here), and the "Green Angels" will respond to help you, free of charge. You just have to remember what the 3-digit code is because it changes with every state you drive through.

Tonight, we are at a cool new hotel in Chihuahua called "The Encore" from Ramada. And tomorrow, we're out of here early again for the drive to Tucson, which the GPS says will take 8 hours, not counting the border crossing at Douglas, AZ. And, to top it off, we just did the Priceline thing and got a suite at the Radisson Resort in Tucson for $55 a night for three nights ... gotta love Priceline (we checked online after getting it and the absolute lowest rate was $125 with a AAA card).

Tomorrow is Superbowl Sunday, and Tucson will be filled with shopping and business type stuff .... so the blog may not return until we begin our return to PV, probably next Wednesday.