The wind continues, but so did the warming trend

Another long driving day was on tap so we got an early start out of Oklahoma City. Last night after dinner I spotted a gas station near us selling fuel for $1.63 a gallon. It would have been smarter to fill up last night as this morning I had to do it in a blustery wind with temperatures hovering around 12 degrees.

Notice the flag and the stiff head wind.

But it was good to get a deal and we were soon on the road even if my fingers were numb.

I forgot to mention in yesterday’s post that we are forever grateful to my other wonderful, beautiful and talented sister Laura for introducing us to the Texas Roadhouse chain. They are one of our go-to places when we are out of town. And Joan, of course, loves the country music.

We were mindful last night that our Bible Study at Taecken’s Terrace was meeting without us for the first time this year. We miss our folks there, but hope they continue with the studies until we return. Driving through the Texas Panhandle we always think of our little group when we pass a gigantic cross just east of Amarillo along I-40.

Welcome to Texas!

As usual our trip through western Oklahoma and parts of the panhandle included excessively high winds today. Joan asked a woman clerk at a Oklahoma convenience store if it was always windy. “Yes, sometimes it moderate, other times it is like it is today excessive, but it is always windy here,” the woman told Joan.

All the scrub trees and bushes have a decided lean to the north, the result of years of being pushed over by the winds “sweeping across the plains.” At times today I thought the wind was so strong it might peel the painted lines off the freeway.

It also plays havoc with decent gas mileage although with the consistently lower fuel prices it is not as worrisome as it was last year.

Welcome to the blue skies of New Mexico

Picking out the cars from our neck of the woods was easy. They were all covered with road salt and we instantly knew we were brethren when they would pass us on the freeway sporting the evidence of the poor weather we had all driven through.

By the time we got to Amarillo it had warmed up enough that I could wash the windows with a service station squeegee although the salt was so thick it didn’t really help all that much. By 1 p.m., somewhere in eastern New Mexico we hit our high for the day of 59 although it stayed pretty much at that temperature until we arrived in Gallup, New Mexico for our night stop.

While we traveled we listened to three more discs from the audio book “Wild” that my sister Pam gave us over Thanksgiving. Some of the language is pretty raw, but it is an interesting story and with my interest in hiking and backpacking it has a great appeal to me.

Snow in the New Mexico highlands

We may, or may not, get to finish it tomorrow on our final leg to Tucson. We like listening to Phlash Phelps on 60s on 6 on the XM Satellite Radio in the mornings which may cut into our book listening time.

At one point in the story, the author refers to a “Shadow Beast” a scary, if mythical figment of her imagination as she progressed on the Pacific Crest Trail. We found that funny because that’s what our granddaughter calls the Tahoe.

The winds lightened by mid-afternoon as we approached and then traveled through Albuquerque and by the time we arrived in Gallup had pretty much calmed altogether.

It's a black Tahoe again.

We are staying in the same hotel we stayed in last year and just to further the routine we again ate at Fratelli’s Italian Restaurant (even though we had Italian on the first night) because we remembered how much we enjoyed our meal there last year.

And Huzzah! I found a do-it-yourself car wash and spent about 15 minutes washing three pounds of road salt off the Tahoe. I completely detail the car next week in Tucson, but it looks a whole lot better than it has for most of the trip.

It may not be until Saturday when I post again as tomorrow will be busy checking the trailer for seaworthiness and setting it up in the park. Thinking and missing all of you back home.

Mileage out: 10377

Not perfect but pretty clean.

Time out: 7:38 a.m. (Central Standard Time)

Mileage in: 11059

Time in: 4:50 p.m. (Mountain Standard Time)