High Plains Drifters- by hubby Matt

On the 8th day we arrived in the 8th state. Since we began this journey, we have traveled from our home state of VA, TN, KY (my home), MO, KS, OK, TX and now NM. Yesterday I would have said that I had seen enough of these states to warrant a catchy monicre like "worldly traveler" but I would have been wrong. There is so much out there to see that so often we take for granted.

We couldn't wait to get out of Oklahoma 'cause let's face it, it's Oklahoma. No offense, but damn. Texola, the last "town" (pretty much a ghost town) in Oklahoma had some attractions. Like the one room jail cell and one of the most interesting quotes I have ever seen. I posted a pic of the quote written on the side of a metal building on Facebook. Texas is Texas. There are some seriously bored folks around that place. Which lucky for us makes for some very interesting travel scenery. Our travels again centered around staying on what we have affectionately began calling the Mother Road. Sometimes, it is impossible to maintain our MRD (Mother Road Discipline) as the road just up and stops. And since Becca will not let me put 35" tires and a lift on the van, we must stay on the interstate. We breezed through several towns in Texas with some interesting history. Like the town of Alanreed that used to be known as Gouge Eye. Big suprise, that story has something to do with a saloon brawl. We saw a 350 lb man eat a 72 oz steak, and several cars, foreign and domestic growing out of the ground. The van (new nickname "Routie") developed an eerie whistling noise somewhere in the middle of nowhere that had us a little nervous. We hoped that we hadn't ran over a vagrant or something when we stopped at the Cadillac Ranch. Seems it was just the wind. Big relief. We then saw the lower plains of the eastern panhandle rise to the caprock of Texas or Llano Estacado (staked plains). The landscape is so flat and featurless, they had to use stakes back in the day to identify plots of land. Cool. These gave way to the high plains of New Mexico. I must say, NM is beautiful. Huge sky and no people. We settled for the night in Tucumcari. A place that is right out of a movie. Tucumcari is actually still a thriving community comapared to all the other towns we have ventured. Little Matt absolutely loved the dinosauer museam here in town. He is a trooper, being straped in a car seat most of the day will make anyone cranky. Especiallly a two year old but he is doing well. We toured the little town and loved all of the old neon signs that are still around.

Tomorrow we are headed to Santa Fe and Albuquerque. Maybe on to Gallup depending on how much we stop to smell the roses. We have been tending to do that a lot on this trip.