I'm in Abilene Texas, geeking from a motel bed on my iBook via a really flaky wireless internet connection. M and I took off from Santa Barbara after New Years and have been driving vaguely toward Austin, through Palm Springs and the Salton Sea, through southern Arizona, a one-hour detour to Nogales, then back up to Las Cruces and White Sands, New Mexico, and then to El Paso and Carlsbad Caverns and then a really, really, really painfully dull drive across northwest Texas. We'll be driving to Austin tomorrow at the same exactly-the-speed-limit pace we've done since we crossed into Texas. Damn state troopers.

Many, many photos to be posted soon.