Sorry ma'am, but imma have to touch your butt.

Today we planned to go to Santa Rosa, New Mexico. For this we had to drive over the long 285 road that went from Carlsbad all the way to Vaughn. This road is super long and, we didn't know this in advance, doesn't have any stops between Roswell and Vaughn (over 65 miles).

We started driving after eating some breakfast at our previous Super8 hotel. The night before we bought some water bottles so we were prepared. The road to Roswell was easy and of course, sandy. Roswell is a city obsessed about aliens or something, because everywhere, litteralt everywhere, were statues and images of the little green men. We made some pictures and continued on the road.

After driving around 20 miles outside of Roswell the gas light turned on. We had no gas left. Mom was kind of hopeful that we would find a gas station in Ramon, a small little town along the road. But Ramon turned out to be a one house town, with no facilities at all. All together our car drove 30 more miles without gas. Then it gave up. In the windy, cold and empty desert. We stopped a car with a family inside, and the driver told me Vaughn wasn't far away from where we were. She had a newborn in her car who was crying, so she would look for someone in Vaughn to bring us gas.

After waiting an hour for the car with extra gas we gave up and stopped another car/truck. A truck in america is a big car, not like a truck truck, but just a very large car (or a pick up in Dutch). This time it was driven by a hillbilly (he told us he was one, so I'm gonna call him Billy for short) who was on his way to Colorado after visiting his mother for Christmas. Lovely! He told us he could give us a ride to the nearest gas station and back to the car to get a Jerry can of gas. So he did. We went to the nearest station, after Billy cleaned up his car real quick. When he did that I saw that Billy got a gun, and mom saw that aswell. She is flabbergasted when it gets to guns here, but is normal for everyone to have one. He told us he got is from his mom for Christmas, a beautiful gun as he would describe it. After some talking with Billy we arrived at the gas station. It was indeed not far away from Vaughn, a 10 minute drive. Because we all sat in the front the gear was in the middle, under moms leg. To park, Billy had to change to the park gear and he has to reach under her butt. Kind of awkward, but he told her "sorry ma'am, but imma have to touch your butt.".

After getting some gas at the gas station Billy brought us back to the car. He asked us how we, as foreigners, thought about Muslims. Both of us, thought that he was some kind of nationalist who didn't want any Mexicans or anyone who has a colour in his country. But after mom told him how she felt about it he told us that his best friend wedded a Syrian woman, and that their wedding, a Syrian wedding, was one of the most amazing weddings he has ever been to. There was dancing and he said he just loved it. He also thought I was American, because he couldn't hear my accent at all. Thank you Billy, I am very flattered!

We started the car with the gas that we got and went back on the road again. The drive to Santa Rosa was good, but tiring in my opinion. It was chilly etc, so when we arrived to eat something (there weren't any restaurants or anything along the way of course) I was super happy and satisfied with my plate of fried rice with chicken. We got to another Super8 hotel, these are so great oh my lord, and went for a little walk. That was basically our day, a long day in the desert with Billy. Fun, but tiring for sure! Now to crawl in our beds and get some good night rest!