In the interest of finishing something, here are some snaps from days 3, 4 and 5 of our cross country road trip. Day 3 found us at White Sands National Monument in New Mexcio. It's an eerie, all white landscape with space-station picnic booths in the middle of the sand dunes. About .2 miles in to hiking the 65' sand drifts I freaked out a bit: the heat, the blinding white, the absence of water. But not before the obligatory runandjump photo. That night we stayed in Pecos, TX, tiny town with, quite oddly, a Best Western styled in the fashion of a Swiss chalet (built by the Swiss proprietiers Swiss son, featuring Swiss memoribelia, including these funny costume prints, everywhere). Then on to the old stockyards of Forth Worth, Texas where there waere animals alive, dead and represented: a petting zoo, an antler chandelier and deer head at the steakhouse, and a fantastic horse lamp outside of the Texas Cowboy Hall of Fame. Day 5 was Jackson, Misssissippi, most notable for the other-worldy fried chicken at Two Sisters (it is worth a trip if you are within 1,000 miles of the restaurant); the stately central post office that is now for lease by a private developer (sob); and the canny aesthetic sense on display at the Farmer's Market.