SUNDAY, JULY 12, EL PASO, TEX. � What everyone says about the Texas drive between San Antonio and El Paso is right � there ain�t nothin� there. I did pass through Johnson City, only 38 miles west of Austin, and saw Main St. Fredericksburg, with old-time West storefronts, but then little else beside the West Texas scenery � High, jagged hills and plateaus, rocks and bushes, ranches reaching all the way to the horizon. Sierra Blanca, the hills get higher, and then as I-10 winds its way northwest from San Antonio, just before exit 78, I saw glistening in the late afternoon sun, the shimmering water of the Rio Grande cutting through the dry fields, mountains of Mexico rising behind it. Down by the river, past all the barren land, the fields are greener, easily irrigated by the river. And the drive from this point is beautiful in sun-sinking Southwest. Mexico lies just to the south and as El Paso grows, the contrast emerges and license plates change language.

Border river lies,
Tempting those who want to cross �
It's not so easy.

Sierra Blanca �
Pock-marked mountain face reaching
For blue Texas sky.