Day 50 - A very long day

Short post as it's going to be a long day. We left about 9:00 a.m. and stopped about 9:30 a.m. so I could get my blood pressure meds refilled at Wal-Mart in Oklahoma City. We left again about 10:00 a.m.!

Not much to see on this stretch of I-40. It's really rough riding!

Arkansas at 1:45 p.m. Got entertained by several yellow crop dusters.

Got to the Days Inn and Suites/RV Park in Brinkley, AR. We're about an hour west of Memphis. We'll be home tomorrow.

See ya down the road!

Jenny :)

Day 49 - Alabama meets Oklahoma!

We headed out early to OKC because we're meeting Donna, another of my online friends. We've come close to meeting before, but never could work it out, so today is the day!

It was nice and cool when we pulled out and stayed cool most of the day.

Just past Groom, TX we saw a leaning water tower. It really is leaning! LOL

http://www.roadsideamerica.com/tip/1266

One thing I saw along I-40 that I REALLY liked! A rest area with a tornado shelter! That was just perfect! LOL I did see one really funny looking "vehicle" on a side road that looked like the TIV.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tornado_Intercept_Vehicle

At 4:00 p.m. we met Donna at the campground! We've been emailing for years, but it marked our first visit. We went to dinner at a GREAT BBQ restaurant. Best ribs I've ever had! Chrissy really like visiting with Donna, too! LOL

All too soon we had to stop talking and go back to the campground. Donna lives in Tulsa so she had a drive back. It was great to finally meet her.

On a somewhat sad note: Our vacation will be ending here, but it's going to take two hard days of driving for David to get us home. My mother is back home from my sister's and she's not doing well. We've arranged for friends to help with her care until we get home. We don't know yet what's ahead, but pray for all of us as we travel home. The next few days will be difficult, but with your prayers, we'll make it. I will continue the blog until we reach home.

See ya down the road!

Jenny :)

Day 48 - Part 2 - Palo Duro Canyon

After the main heat of the day, we headed to Palo Duro Canyon. It's gorgeous and it's hard to believe that it's Texas! It's not what you'd think you'd see!

You drive down into the canyon on an eight mile road and back up the canyon on the same eight miles. It takes a while to drive it, but it's gorgeous.

There are lots of hiking trails, bike trails, and horse trails. There are many pull-outs to view the canyon, also.

They also have a number of flash floods here, so the roads are marked where they occur and how high the water is. Not sure I'd want to camp here. Uh, yes....David did cross where the water is. Said he was cooling his brakes!

We saw lots of wild animals....deer, turkeys, tarantulas! Yes, tarantulas! No, I'll never go camping here, but was rather proud of myself for getting out of the truck and taking the photos of them. If one had turned toward me....I hate to think!

We made our way out of the canyon just before dark and just before I freaked over all the spiders! LOL

Early to bed as we have a long drive to Oklahoma City tomorrow! OH! Rain during the night and it's much cooler here!

See ya down the road!

Jenny :)

Day 48 - Part 1 - Groom, TX

We got up kind of early and headed out for a tour. We started to Palo Duro Canyon, but decided to visit there in the evening. A friend had told us about Groom, Texas so we headed there. It's the home of the largest cross in the Western Hemisphere. But it was way more than that!

Around the cross are statues and explanations of the 14 stations of the Cross. There is also sculptures of the Last Supper, the Crucifixion, and the Tomb. It was very moving. We ran into a church group from Tennessee returning from a mission trip to Arizona. They were all as amazed as we were. http://www.crossministries.net/

After we spent some time there, we rode into town to the Blessed Mary Restaurant. It's the only place in town to eat. The menu has about 15 items on it and no prices. The "cash register" is a jar by the exit and you put in what you feel is proper for your meal. The two specialties are hamburgers and enchiladas. I had the hamburger and David got the enchiladas. Each table has the name of a disciple and a Bible verse. There are all sorts of religious pictures on the walls.

Check out this story about the place: http://www.route66university.com/study/inthenews/121.php

We truly enjoyed our visit to both places! Headed back to the campground for a short nap and get ready for Palo Duro Canyon.

See ya down the road!

Jenny :)

Day 47 - Amarillo by morning - errr - later afternoon

Woke up early and realized something was wrong. My left eye had something in it. Tried washing it out, but no luck, so I thought maybe I'd just scratched it. Didn't get any better. We stopped along the road at a grocery store and David got some plain tears eye drops. The pharmacist told him that if it wasn't better if a couple of hours to get it checked. Back on the road.

Strange things on the road (according to David's terminology):

Free Range Solar Fried Chicken
Dry Aged Road Kill (YUCK!)

We got to Texas at 2:30 p.m. and now we're back on Central Daylight Time.

Looked for a WalMart with an optical center along the way as the eye isn't better. We finally found one - in Amarillo. Dr. Luke and Kim could not have been nicer! Kim lives in an Airstream similar to ours! Dr. Luke took me back and started looking at my eye. He put some staining liquid in my eye, but didn't see any cuts or scratches. I'm kind of funny about my eyelids and when he flipped my lid up, I just about had a stroke! LOL It was there he saw the great offender! I had a grain of sand embedded in the upper lid! He deadened the eye so I wouldn't freak and run and very gentle cleaned the upper lid and the lower part of my eye. He told me I wouldn't know if anything else was in there until the feeling came back, but he didn't see anything else. He gave me some drops for it and told me to call his cell if I had any problems or come back on Saturday if I needed to and he wouldn't charge for a visit. He and Kim were super!

We got set up at the Amarillo Ranch RV Park. The sites are HUGE! We're right down the street from the Big Texan Steak Ranch and we planned to have dinner here. We made a reservation for 7:00 p.m. and a limo with horns showed up to pick us up. Our camping neighbor, Jerry Lewis, was waiting to go, too, so we decided to have dinner together. Dinner was great! We also had a coupon for a free desert and it was Texas-sized, too! In the picture above, you see a table near the cooking area. If you can eat a 72 oz. steak and all the trimmings within an hour, you get it free. That table is reserved for them! Unfortunately, no one was willing to try it that night. Take note of the trash can. Guess what it's for????

Here's a link to the restaurant: http://www.bigtexan.com/

We took the limo back to the campground and talked a bit. My eye feels much better. Two songs keep coming to mind: "Dust in the Wind" and "The Answer My Friend is Blowing in the Wind."

Tomorrow we'll visit Palo Duro Canyon.

See ya down the road!

Jenny :)

Day 46 - Visit with Liz and Family!

Before we left this morning , we swept, vacuumed, and mopped. We also rearranged items in the RV, and removed mysterious items from the fridge.

Leaving with a few sprinkles falling this morning and headed to Albuquerque to visit our friend Liz and her family - Bob - husband, and kids, Max, Wells, and Keely. It's not a long drive today, so we'll stop to shop along Route 66.

We stopped at Continental Divide, NM to do some shopping and do some sight-seeing. James wanted his photo taken at the continental divide sign and the Route 66 sign on the highway, so we took a moment to do that.

I went inside the first store, but didn't find anything I couldn't live without. Inside the next store, something was going on. The three people who worked there kept saying "I hope she's alright....I wonder where the ambulance is." They kept looking out the window, but I didn't see anything. I paid for my purchase and step outside. There was an older lady on the ground having a seizure. Her husband was trying to hold her still. I asked him if needed any cold water, but he said no and that the ambulance was coming but was coming from some distance. As we pulled out, the ambulance pulled in. Hope everything turned out alright.

On to Albuquerque! We get in and get settled. We'd stayed here before and liked this campground. It's on Route 66 and has a lot of vintage cars and campers parked around. Best of all, they have trees!

We call Liz and arrange to meet her at her house about 4:00 p.m. We headed to Camping World and Walmart for a little shopping for the RV before heading to her house. We finally get there! I didn't take a picture of Liz's yard, but wish I had! Flowers everywhere and it's gorgeous. I need her to visit me and fix my yard!

It was good to see her again. The kids have grown a lot in the two years since we've seen her and the family. We also got to meet Pita the dog. She's gorgeous and great with the kids. She really likes playing with Bob!

We headed to dinner at Garcia's. It was a great Mexican restaurant. The fun part was, Liz knows everybody there! She even knew some of the kids in the place. Dinner was wonderful! Thanks for everything!

We headed back to the campground as we have a 300 mile drive to Amarillo, TX in the morning. When we got there, we realized that a storm had moved through the campground. It had rained in parts of Albuquerque, but the campground got wind and sand. Our doormat was buried in the sand and there were small tree limbs down over the park, but no damage to any one's unit that we could see.

Off to bed and an early morning! Oh, don't forget to check out David's new cut!

See ya down the road!

Jenny :)

Day 45 - Gallup-ing off!

The high in Flagstaff yesterday was 83 degrees and this morning it's clear and cool - 43 degrees! Caught the laundry up and re-arranged the inside stuff!

We've now traveled 7,822 miles!

Off through the desert and then into some hills. More dust devils!

Stopped in Holbrook, AZ for a bite to eat for lunch and back on the road again!

New Mexico at 3:00 p.m. Mountain Daylight Time

I think Stephen King developed my seat belt. For no apparent reason, it suddenly grabs me and holds me against the seat. The only way to get loose is to take off the seatbelt. You can fix it and the next minute you're right back against the seat. I bet I took the seatbelt on and off about 50 times!

David decided to get a haircut in Gallup. If you've been a previous reader of our blogs, you know that these "vacation" haircuts don't usually go well. When he got out of the truck, I should have told him to not get "scalped." I'm sorry I didn't as he came back with a haircut that won't grow out before Christmas. He says it's cooler and it really doesn't look bad, but it's SHORT!

Liz - we took your suggestion of dinner at Earl's. I'll get even with you somehow! The food was great as was the service, but you forgot to mention the "visitors." Just wait.... LOL

After dinner we went to the El Rancho Hotel/Motel. It was great. It's an old hotel on Route 66 just down the road from our campground. During it's hey-day, many movies stars stayed here. They would film westerns in Monument Valley and come back here for the night. There was a player piano in the lobby. The top of the piano was playing the keys and a piano roll, but the bottom was playing percussion instruments. It was pretty neat!

Back to the RV and enjoying the breeze. No AC for us...fans feel great. Looks like it's raining off in the distance. They told us in the office that they get 12" of rain here a year. I can believe it!

Off to Albuquerque in the morning and to meet Liz!

See ya down the road!

Jenny :)