Oil, cotton, peanuts and vines.

From Denver City, Tx we headed north east in pleasant cool sunshine with a few clouds early on. Initially we were surrounded by the nodding donkey pumps of an oilfield based around the town but this gave way to irrigated agriculture mainly of cotton. The bushes are pretty small these days ned I presume they've been selectively bred the way over the last few decades to maximise yields and aid mechanical harvesting. Lots of cotton harvesting equipment around and judging by the cotton bursting out of most buds we presume harvesting will begin soon. Did not see growing peanuts but several storage and processing units seen as well as a small number of vineyards. 

Oddly after three hot states where the roads were really smooth and with no sign of any meted tar we are now on coarser roads with very evident previous melting of tar.  They need to get someone in from New Mexico to show how it should be done. 

In the small towns we've passed through today we've seen contain a lot of poor housing and this has been a feature of our whole route. People worry about poverty in the third world but there is plenty of it here and it is harder to survive without money in the UA than it would be in many third world countries. 

The Internet connection is lousy here so only got a few pics to choose from which is a shame. Did 93 miles today but it seemed harder than yesterday, especially after lunchtime when the endless cotton fields did not provide any variety. 

Ripe cotton. 

They like their big boys toys here. We caught a man in his Sunday best being photographed on the big one. 

Another feature on this Sunday morning was the very full car parks at churches.