Last year shipwreck, this year smooth sailing through New Mexico

Blue skies, clear sailing

   What a difference a year makes. Last year when we came through New Mexico we ran into a 10-inch snowfall (in some places more) and it took us 8 hours to drive 44 miles along I-44. Today one-year and two days later we breezed into New Mexico with clear skies and dry roads.

Retro key

    We left Roland, Oklahoma this morning and had an easy run through a very long state. In fact today we drove through the longest section of Oklahoma followed by the shortest section (panhandle) of Texas.

Retro "chic"

   In driving through Oklahoma you are basically transiting through a variety of Native American nations. During our transit of the Cherokee Nation the 60s radio station was playing the old son “Mr. Custer” which was a goofy song in the 1960s about the massacre of General Custer’s men at Little Big Horn. The lyrics are “Please Mr. Custer, I don’t want to go….” Probably a song that due to political correctness would not be made today.

Joan and her dinner "companion"

   Each nation seems to have one or more casinos, which may explain the beautiful schools that we saw while driving along the freeway.

   The hotel we stayed in last night was what Joan termed “retro chic.”  I got the retro part, the “chic” part escapes me. But we had an old-fashioned room key and while the décor is dated the room was clean and comfortable and only $50.

My dinner friend

    The XM 60s station was playing the top 600 hits from the 1960s and at one point they played Bobby Vinton’s “Rose are Red.” Both of us agreed that the song reminded us of our brother-in-law Denny who often starts his clever poems with “Roses are Red, violets are blue….”

   Every year we travel through Oklahoma we see more and more windmills, which is very apt because as I have pointed out before it is always blowing a gale there. Today, not so much, but still a pretty healthy breeze.

   Sadly we saw a horrendous accident on the eastbound lanes (we were headed west) of I-40 just inside the Texas border and again, as we witnessed in Ohio a couple months ago, there was a helicopter standing by for an emergency evacuation.

    As has become my custom I stopped to top off my gas tank in Amarillo ($2.11 a gallon) because once you get into New Mexico the gas stations are few and far between and the cost goes way up. We’ll be good until after Albuquerque now.

It was called the Lizard lounge

    Thanks to the time change to Mountain Standard Time we arrived in Tucumcari, New Mexico shortly before 4 p.m. which gave us time to watch Navy pull out a victory over Kansas State University before going to dinner at the Pow Wow Restaurant and Lizard Lounge.

   The booths included paintings of people that looked very real and like they were sitting with you. Actually kind of creepy.

    They had a great soup and salad bar. The green chili soup was not “chilly” at all but very, very good. Joan had the salmon and I had a hamburger steak. Being that it was New Year’s Eve we tried in Amarillo at the Wal Mart to find Joan’s pickled herring (her family tradition is that you eat it at midnight for good luck for the next year). No luck in Amarillo and no luck in Tucumcari finding the pickled herring. So I guess it’s bad luck for us.

   We had planned on eating at the same restaurant we dined at two years ago when we stayed here, but alas it has closed. I guess our visiting once every two years was not enough business to keep it open.

    Tomorrow we’ll make the second to the last leg of our trip with our destination Flagstaff where we’ll pick up our trailer Thursday morning and head to Tucson.

   Thanks again for joining us on our journey and I’ll write again when we land in Tucson.

    Thought for the day: Why is it that every time I “borrow” a pen from a hotel room, it doesn’t work?”

Time out in Roland, Oklahoma: 8:06 a.m. (CST)

Mileage out: 33324

Time in Tucumcari, New Mexico: 3:47 p.m. (MST)

Mileage in: 33878

An easy, breezy trip through four states

   After a quick, but memorable visit with the children and grandchildren in Tennessee we are continuing our trek west to Arizona.

Cherokee Casino

   We left Florence, Kentucky Sunday morning and made an uneventful short trip to Murfreesboro, Tennessee where we were greeted by our youngest grandson waiting for us at the corner near the family home. As soon as he spotted “the Beast” (as the children call our Tahoe) he streaked home to announce our arrival. It’s so nice to be wanted.

     Temperatures were an extremely mild 60s all the way to Tennessee and when we arrived it was 67 degrees. So that was nice. We did end up getting some pretty heavy rain that night. After opening Christmas presents, playing games with the children, we all went to dinner at a local steakhouse.

   Back home it was more game playing and then a late night turn in. We were up fairly early on Monday and our oldest grandson, who is only 10, made us scrambled eggs for breakfast. They were really good.

   Sadly we had to say good bye and we were off on the next chapter of our adventure.

    Often when we are preparing to leave Michigan people will say “have a nice vacation.” Which is understandable from their point of view but for us we aren’t on vacation, we are just enjoying our life. Tucson has become as much a part of our life as is Michigan. So we don’t think of it as vacation. A small, but minor point.

    Many folks have texted us worried that we are hitting this current “storm of the century” but we are well south of any bad weather and enjoyed another very easy travel day on Monday. Traffic was light, no accidents and barely a cloud in the sky.

    Gasoline in Tennessee is way cheaper than at home and I filled up in Murfreesboro for $2.01. Later in the day in Arkansas I got it for $2.14, so that was also pleasant.

    As we left on I-840 in Murfreesboro we spotted our first Armadillo road kill. Temperatures on this travel day were a little cooler than the previous day, mostly in the low to mid-50s.  We hit a high of 57 degrees somewhere along the route.  

   A couple of times we spotted large wet fields of white geese, thousands of them.

snow geese (not our photo)

   We were passed twice by a brand-spanking new white Cadillac hearse along I-40. It was empty which is the happier way to see a hearse.

    After my terrible deer crash this summer, I am extra cautious to keep an eye out for the creatures. So when we spotted a lone deer grazing on the shoulder of the road I was fully prepared to take evasive action if it started to move near the road. He/she stayed put. 

   We passed the time by listening on the XM radio to a couple of entertaining college football bowl games.

   Upon checking into our hotel in Roland, Oklahoma we headed to the nearby Cherokee Casino for dinner. By registering for a rewards card we got a 2-for-1 buffet ticket and Joan ended up hitting a small jackpot and we left not just full, but flush with $200 cash to the good. Not a bad ending for the day.

    Tomorrow we head for Tucumcari, New Mexico, a place we have stayed before (and where we got trapped in a terrible snowstorm last year) and we’ll ring in the New Year there.

   Looking ahead at our travel weather shows that we should be clean and green the whole way. If something changes, we’ll adapt. If I don’t get a chance to post tomorrow, may all of you nice people who follow our travels have a safe and happy New Year!

Time out Florence, Kentucky (Sunday, 12/29/19): 8:16 a.m. (EST)

Mileage out Florence, Kentucky: 32472

Time in Murfreesboro, Tennessee: 12:17 (CST)

Mileage in: 32776

Time out Murfreesboro, Tennesse 12/30/19: 8:56 a.m.

Mileage out: 327766

Time in Roland, Oklahoma: 5:17 p.m.

Mileage in: 33324

On the Road Again!

It hardly seems possible that we are making our tenth winter visit to Tucson. We spent two winters touring Florida and one winter in Texas, but we have truly found our winter escape in Arizona.

   When we started our trip in Lapeer it was 32 degrees and the temperature continued to climb until we arrived in Kentucky when it topped out at 62.

   Today’s travel was perfect, light traffic and good weather. Also plenty of college football to listen to on the radio to make the time pass quickly. Because I often drive my bus on Saturday I never get to watch “College Gameday” on ESPN anymore, but I got to listen to it on the XM radio on the trip down here today.

    Unlike previous years, we did not leave in the middle of the night as we decided to make a leisurely departure and travel only to northern Kentucky on this first leg of our journey west.

   Perhaps the only thing we didn’t anticipate was that there was some basketball game here of local interest (Kentucky versus Louisville) which meant every sports bar was packed to the gills with fans from both sides.

   We headed to a sports bar to watch the Oklahoma versus LSU semi-final playoff game, only to find most of the TVs tuned to the basketball game and many rowdy fans. We did find one table near the football game TV so it all worked out. The game was a stinker though as Oklahoma laid a giant egg.

    We’ve had first day travels way worse than this one, including ice, snow and frigid temperatures so 2019-2020 will go down (at least for today) as one of the nicest travel days we have had.

   Tonight we are staying at a Best Western in Florence, Kentucky which, as it unfortunately turned out, is on the direct flight path to the airport that serves Cincinnati, Ohio. The insulation seems to keep most of the flight noise out though.

    The water tower just a stone’s throw from the hotel announces “Florence Y’all.” 

   Tomorrow we will continue our trek with an overnight stay with son John, daughter-in-law Nicole and the three grandchildren living in Tennessee. Then we’ll begin our earnest travel west on Monday. I probably won’t blog again until Monday night.

   Anytime we travel north to south on I-75 in Ohio we are reminded of an observation of our oldest grandson, who opined that “Ohio is a very long state.”  Actually not so long, but because of the boring terrain it does seem long.

Time out: 11 a.m.

Mileage out: 32133

Time in: 4:16 p.m.

Mileage in: 32472