A harrowing travel through New Mexico

   In all our 12 years of traveling we have never encountered a day as awful as yesterday. Usually when I write these travel posts I do it chronologically, but as an old newspaper reporter that would be burying the lede.

The I-40 New Mexico parking lot at 11 p.m.

  On Friday morning we left Henryetta, Oklahoma with the knowledge that we could run into some snow as we drove through I-40 in New Mexico. That is not unusual and as an experienced winter driver not something I am even too anxious about. I had been following the weather and over the last week the outlook had been improving for our trip.

   At one time there was a prediction of 12-inches of snow, but that was readjusted several times to the final prediction of 3-5 inches of snow and most of that was to occur before we ever got to New Mexico.

   So the trip was going along quite well, we hit a little flurry action in Amarillo, also not unusual this time of year, and we were able to maintain a good speed and make great progress.

  My first indication (and my first mistake) was when I punched in our destination for the night (Moriarity, New Mexico) and OnStar gave us an incredibly long alternate route to get there. 

Unfortunately they didn’t explain (and yes, I did ask) why the unusual route, but we soon found out.

   Just outside Tucumcari, New Mexico traffic came to a standstill. I pulled up my phone and found out that accidents ahead had closed I-40. So I got back to OnStar and they gave us another alternate route to get us around the problem. The problem kept moving east. As soon as we leap frogged to Newkirk, New Mexico, we were informed that new accidents had occurred ahead.

Late for Monday Night football?

   In Newkirk, road crews were loading dirt from a field onto plow trucks and spreading it on the freeway just as we were released to continue our journey at 4:48 p.m. We had gotten off the freeway in Tucumcari about 2 p.m. and gone only about a total of 30 miles on I-40 with the detour.

    Being just 47 miles from out destination with reservations in hand we decided to wait it out over dinner in Santa Rosa, New Mexico. Surely, they would have the mess cleaned up after our leisurely dinner. Wrong.

   The fun was just beginning. No hotels were available anymore and I-40 was a virtual parking lot for 30 miles. It wasn’t snowing anymore, but it was cold. Fortunately I had filled up fuel in Amarillo as part of the difficulty along the route was that many people simply ran out of gas waiting in traffic and abandoned cars in traffic lanes. That made matters so much better.

During the good times Friday

    At one point when we finally started to move, I nearly plowed into a car in the left lane that I thought maybe had just forgotten to turn the lights on but at the last moment realized was just abandoned. People were very courteous to each other (there was the occasional idiot who drove like a maniac but I’m not talking about him) and made room for people to move over when the need arose.

   People were out of the cars and trucks talking and walking and stretching but some of the waits were 90 minutes at a time. We left dinner in Santa Rosa about 7 p.m. and checked into our hotel at 1:09 a.m. People were being turned away so I was very glad I had a reservation. I guess the traffic and snow made the news, but I was too tired to watch.

    We are thankful to be alive and grateful that in all the mess apparently no one was killed or seriously injured. It’s a pain to be delayed, but worse if you are the one in the accident that caused it.

    Not sure why the New Mexico Department of Transportation fell so far behind the road clearing for a relatively normal snowstorm but in any event we are safe and ready to continue our journey after a harrowing night and a good sleep.

   I love being a part of history, but this little episode I could have gladly missed. And before you say it out loud, I made several errors in judgement this night and I ended the evening by apologizing to Joan for not making better decisions along the way. Live and learn. 

   Earlier on the trip Friday we spotted a couple Monday Night Football Trucks traveling east on I-40 and later one was parked at our hotel in Moriarity so he must have been coming way behind the other two.

   We also noted a lot of Michigan license plates along the route, most of us probably wondering why we had left relatively good weather to drive through this bad weather.

Time out: 8:39 a.m. (CST)

Time in: 1:09 a.m. (next day MST)

Mileage out: 2587

Mileage in: 3218

  Now back to our regularly scheduled blogging.

  We left Michigan at 5:40 a.m. on Wednesday enroute to Murfressboro, Tennessee to have Christmas with our son, daughter-in-law and grandchildren Wednesday night.  It was 32 degrees when we left but rose through the day to a high of 62.

Opening presents

   We spotted lots of hawks along the freeway looking for food. A highway sign we saw said “Even Santa wears a seat belt.”  Another notable sign spotted in Nashville was “Grandma got run over by a reindeer? Call Morgan and Morgan attorneys.”

   This portion of the trip was uneventful and we had a wonderful time watching everyone open presents.

Time out: 5:40 a.m. (EST)

Time in: 3:45 p.m. (CST)

Mileage out: 1307

Mileage in: 1949

   On our second day of traveling we left Murfreesboro and headed to a new destination for us, Henryetta, Oklahoma. The location worked for the timing of the trip (not knowing what was to come) but was notable for one thing, nothing notable in Henryetta.

   Usually when we stay in a hotel you can find “Things to Do in ??” booklets in your room. Not in Henryetta. But we were just there for the night so we weren’t planning any sightseeing trips anyway.

   I did find out it was named for Hugh Henry who found coal there many, many years ago. It's most notable resident is Troy Aikman, Hall of Fame quarterback for the Dallas Cowboys.

   What we originally thought would be the most aggravating storm of our trip turned out to be mile in comparison to what was to come. Just outside Little Rock, Arkansas we got into a thunderstorm that took us about 90 minutes to drive through. I guess this was the same storm that would hit the east coast the next day.

   We had hoped to stop and see my cousin, her children and grandchildren but the storm and its delays caused us to have to cancel that stop.

Presentation was a problem

   A small airplane on a flat bed truck was the most unsual sighting of the day, but the weather was seasonable and temperatures got up to 65 at the highest. Little did we know.

   Because of the storm delay we stopped for dinner before finishing the drive to Henryetta and the only place we could find was a Pizza Hut in a small town an hour east of our destination. We had what could be described only as a very average meal, served in an aluminum foil pan and presented to us in a sandwich basket (see photo).

Time out: 8:51 a.m. (CST)

Time in:  7:24 p.m. (CST)

Mileage out: 1949

Mileage in: 2587