What was really surprising was how green New Mexico was. We’ve flown — ’cause we’re from Hawaii — so we’ve flown from Hawaii over to Michigan. And the route, the flying route, the airline route, goes across the Southwest. When you’re looking down from the airplane, it’s all desert. That whole southwest region of the country is pure desert, it’s just a beige, sand color. And you wonder, “How in the world did any life exist or survive out there?” Because it looks like — how in — how do you find water to stay alive? How do you endure the heat that’s in the desert?
So we’re — hour after hour after hour — going through New Mexico. And it was so green. It was such a stark contrast to the deserts of Arizona and the desert of Texas. This one we didn’t go through Texas, but we’ve been to Texas — the room attendant on the first — the first room attendant going to LA, he said, “Yes, don’t bother with the Texas Eagle route because it’s all desert. Nothing to see.” But New Mexico had those big plateaus and the mesas, um, the — it’s not canyons but it’s these water erosion formations. It had hills and mountains and forests and trees, shrubbery, grasslands for the cattle. And, you know, there was cattle and horses and bear. It was surprising. We just didn’t expect New Mexico to, to be beautiful to look at. But the colors of the rocks, they were red and pink, besides the beige sand color. The formation of the mesas and the plateaus was, it was just really lovely to look at.