Oklahoma, Oklahoma, Oklahoma! December 13, 2008

Route: Albuquerque, NM to Elk City, OK – 432 miles

We did three states and two time zones today! We’re on pace to get to Little Rock on Monday to meet an old friend and to meet the movers on time in Bloomington. Let me first stay that I have never been in wind as strong as it was today. I nearly got blown off of my feet at a bizarre rest stop in New Mexico. They had a stuffed bobcat for sale. There was some more snow on the side of the road today, but it wasn’t enough to dance in.

There’s a cool dinosaur museum in Tucumcari, NM. Andy negotiated a discount on the admission fee because I’m almost a student. We crossed through Texas next and stopped for a bit in Amarillo, where I had my first Starbucks in 3 days. Gingersnap is like crack to me. We also browsed the gift shop at The Big Texan, where they give you a free 72 ounce steak if you can finish it in under an hour. That would straight up kill me.

We made it to Elk City, OK for the night, which is pretty much as far as we could go without killing each other.  We hope to make it to either Fort Smith or Little Rock tomorrow night.

NOTE: Photos and videos are taking forever to upload – will put in different posts.

Occasionally, I’ll Be Quirky December 12, 2008

Route: Flagstaff, AZ to Albuquerque, NM – 324 miles

I’m having problems with pictures and video tonight, so I’ll see if I can edit that back in later.

So the original plan this morning was to make a left at Gallup, NM and go visit some family in Cortez, CO. That didn’t happen. We got to Gallup and realized that we would be driving 300 north across a sparsely populated Indian reservation in the dark. Also it was supposed to snow later. We decided in the interest of time and safety to just go straight through New Mexico and stop in Albuquerque for the night.

We had another 3 hours or so of driving in us, but we decided that getting to a hotel early-ish and being able to just have some downtime was more important. However, now our route for the rest of the trip is thrown off. Tomorrow will be interesting. We’re going to continue east on 40, but Amarillo is too close to stop for the night and Oklahoma City looks to be too far. Andy’s curled up in a chair with the atlas right now trying to work it out.

Highlights from today: We stood on a corner in Winslow Arizona! If you don’t know why that’s exciting, go ask your parents. Winslow is surprisingly lovely. That reminds me, we bought some postcards today and meant to write them out tonight. Maybe tomorrow…

We crossed into New Mexico and there was snow! On the ground! Andy pulled over on the side of the road and pushed me out so I could do a little dance in it. New Mexico is spectacular. The rock formations combined with the desert are amzing. I’m hoping we can at least drive through Old Town Albuquerque in the morning and get some pictures. We’ll see where we end up tomorrow.