Standing beneath the smoke
detector Kim could hear it. Thank
goodness! I wasn't going to be in noise hell by
myself!! Turning on the wall fan for
some white noise masked the chirping and I drifted off to sleep with no
problem. The chirp didn’t interfere with
my sleep at all but this morning when I became conscious I could hear it again. We’ll tell the clerk on our way out.
--------------------
 |
| Not Rapunzel's first choice |
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The final leg of our time in Kansas (KS-23 to US
54 West) was through The Big Wide Open...farmland as far as the eye could see filled
with sorghum fields, old time windmills, and only an occasional farmhouse. In the
midst of all this openness Kim wonders if there’s a gas station on this route
as we’d be needing fuel soon. Well, I hadn’t
thought about that when I chose the route.
Did a quick search online (thankful I had a signal) and yes, there is a gas up ahead where we have to make a turn. Whew!
--------------------
--------------------
Kim’s comment as we were
coming into a little farming community: “I think if I was going to have a motel
in a little podunk town I’d name it something besides the Hooker
Motel....because that’s the name of the motel we just passed.” We chuckled about that but soon realized that
we were in the town of Hooker, Oklahoma.
I guess the joke was on us. 😀
--------------------
Driving through open farmland
like this always gets me wondering about how people get their mail. There are homes out in The Big Wide Open but
they’re few and far between with no mailboxes out by the main road. That either makes for a daily trip into town
to check a post office box or an incredibly spread out route for a mail
carrier. And I’d make a guess that
delivering mail on a 20 customer route would take the entire day. Not a lot of towns or post offices out here
either so the post office box could be problematic also. If I ever saw a person around, I’d ask Kim to
stop so I could put this matter to rest by asking how they get their mail.
Next topic I would ask about
is gas....as in where do they get gas for their vehicles. I’d ask if they had to drive into town to get
fuel or if they had it delivered to their home (assuming they could have storage
tanks). We get propane delivered to our
house so I assume that fuel for vehicles used at these out of the way farms
could be delivered also. These are
questions I’d need answered before I ever agreed to move into The Big Wide
Open.
---------------------
The route I chose was taking
us to Tucumcari, New Mexico. I knew
that KS-23 to US 54 would angle us down to Oklahoma but I was very surprised to
see an ‘Entering Texas’ sign less than an hour after we’d entered Oklahoma. What I hadn’t realized was that the bulk of
this route was cutting through a corner of Texas. Guess I’d have known that had I enlarged the
map on my phone.
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Five Rivers Cattle Feeding
outside of Dalhart, TX....an absolutely incredibly huge and smelly feedlot on
both sides of Highway 54. I thought
there had to be a million cows out there but Kim thought more in the
thousands. Wonder if Google knows...but
I can’t ask right now because the Mobile Command Center is down, meaning out in
this part of Texas there is no signal.
Will have to wait until I get a signal to see if I can verify cow
numbers.
--------------------
We’re now in Mountain Time so
we’re 2 hours behind Michigan...only 4 p.m. here and the sun is past its peak
in the sky. Ate a late lunch in Tucumcari, NM, then hit US 40 from there. The wind is a fierce presence....we’re
shimmying around like crazy. Last night
road fatigue was caused by several hours of driving after dark in the rain
...today the sky is clear and the sun is out and the determining factors of whether
we drive beyond daylight are how Kim feels after a couple of hours of battling
the wind and the intensity of the setting sun.
--------------------
Update
on the Five Rivers Feedlot outside of Dalhart, TX: I found a document that lists the feedlot at
Dalhart as having 540 acres of feed yard area and 768 acres of
irrigated/dryland area for a total capacity of 74,000 head of cattle. Kim was technically right but I stand by my
assertion that it looked like a
million cattle out there. 😏
I
snagged this picture from online but I think it only tells part of the story
because this feedlot was on both sides of the road. Further research indicates that there are
several feedlots located outside of Dalhart so maybe we passed between two
separate feedlots. I saw the Five Rivers
sign and had just assumed that that company owned the sum total of all the cattle we
were seeing. Maybe not....
I
snagged this picture from online but I think it only tells part of the story
because this feedlot was on both sides of the road. Further research indicates that there are
several feedlots located outside of Dalhart so maybe we passed between two
separate feedlots. I saw the Five Rivers
sign and had just assumed that that company owned the sum total of all the cattle we
were seeing. Maybe not....
--------------------
After we crossed from Texas
into New Mexico Rapunzel was letting us know how many miles it was to Q R Ai
where we were supposed to turn left. What!? Is that a road, a town or something
else entirely? And, by the way, why are
you telling me about it if it’s not a road? You’re a talking map lady. I saw nothing indicating what Q R Ai might
be so I turned to Google. Didn’t find
anything about Q R Ai but did find sites dealing with QR code apps which wasn’t
helpful at all. I approached it several
different ways, still found nothing and came to the conclusion that it was just
Rapunzel’s way of getting back at me for pulling rank on her this morning.
On the up side, I did stumble
across Pie Town, NM, on a random blog reference that popped up. I read the
entry and looked at the pictures. Then I
started planning: I did route and mileage comparisons...I looked up hotel
availability for tonight...I checked whether the pie stores would be open tomorrow...I
did all that before mentioning it to Kim.
He agreed mostly because I thought it would be just the right kind of
fun quirky stop required of all great adventures. 😊
And I really think it was
meant to be: I found mention of Pie Town when I was searching for an unknown
reference made by Rapunzel...Pie Town is a small town with a population of
about 150 so it doesn’t have much map presence but I was able to find it thanks
to a picture on a travel blog...when checking on the map I saw that it was still
ahead of us so no backtracking would be necessary (that could be a deal
breaker)...there were plenty of hotels in Socorro which was on the way and it required
only a slight deviation in our route resulting in only a minor variation in our
Quartzsite ETA. It was kismet!! And since we really don’t have a set
timetable to keep we’re going for it.
I’m kind of excited.
--------------------
I was using the Mobile
Command Center to do all the research for the Pie Town stop and after we
navigated around Albuquerque I set about finding a place to stay tonight in
Socorro, which is south of Albuquerque.
I had several windows open on the computer checking out hotels/prices,
discussing them with Kim, etc...finally decided on the Super 8, made
reservations and felt quite satisfied with how this was all panning out. Arrived at the hotel before 8 o’clock...oh good, we can do the ‘early to bed, early
to rise’ thing. Walk in the motel
office, give him my name and told him we had reservations, etc. He couldn’t find any reservations for
Bakker...well, shoot, I received an email
confirmation. I left my phone in the
truck; I’ll just go get it. He takes
a look at my phone and says, “You came to the wrong motel, ma’am. This reservation is for the Motel 8 in Belen...see
it says Belen, this is Socorro.” Where is Belen located? “About 40 miles north of here.” Huh!!
As I’m doing some fast thinking about the situation the man says to call
Wyndham main reservation desk and see if they’ll transfer the reservation to
Socorro. I make the call, explain my mistake and the
kind gentleman on the other end got the other reservation cancelled all the
while I’m shaking my head and Kim is trying not to laugh. I felt much better about it all when he
grinned and said, “We have such good adventures!”
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It was not a big picture day but the temperature reached 68 degrees, so there's that.
 |
| Monday's route |
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