Moving
day! First thing was to take a shower
because who knows when the opportunity will present itself again. If the
temperature stay decent we’ll be pulling over in rest areas or truck stops to
crawl back in the camper to sleep. The plan is to avoid motels unless it gets
too cold.
Stopped at
the office to talk to Felicia and buy one last ice cream goody before we
left. Took a selfie with Felicia but no
Ryan...he wasn’t in the office. Pulled
out of the parking lot right at 11 a.m.
Time to get this show on the road!
--------------------
Plugged our
destination into Rapunzel and she wanted to take us to I-40 via 77...the Salt
Lake Canyon road. No thank you! Been
there, done that, won’t do it again. We did
it unknowingly one year pulling our 14 Ft. bike trailer and it was no
fun....camper is longer so we needed a different route. Decided to take I-10 to Las Cruces and then
angle up to 40 from there. Multiple
routes available from Las Cruces.
--------------------
New Mexico
was dusty all the way around today.
Could only see a vague outline of mountains at the horizon due to
blowing dirt. Thankfully we didn’t have
to drive through it, just marvel at it in the distance.
--------------------
South Dakota has Wall Drug with it miles and
miles of billboard advertising...Arizona has The Thing. For me it’s been like Rooster Cogburn’s
Ostrich Ranch which is about 9 miles from Picacho and is always busy. I was determined not to give into the hype
and then one day a couple of years ago I suggested it as an afternoon activity.
Although I was skeptical about it, today I kinda sorta suggested we stop; however I said that if it cost more than $1 per person I wasn’t going to see whatever this Thing was that we were there to see. Apparently my curiosity has a price tag.
Walk
into a very nice gift shop with standard southwestern trinkets, art, t-shirts
and more. The entrance to The Thing
Museum was tucked at the back of the gift shop.
I saw that it was $5 per person and despite my earlier claim about the
cost I was waffling about whether to go in because I like Roadside America
oddities. Kim and I quietly discussed whether to go in or not. He
was willing to do whatever I wanted so he wasn’t a big help in making up my
mind. My main issue was that no one was
coming out exclaiming how cool it was.
I was
standing behind a display rack when I saw a man and his son exit. They walked in my direction so I leaned
around to ask the them What did you
think? The man had a mask on so I
had to ask him to repeat himself so he very quietly said again, “Save your
money.” That’s what I wanted to know...thank you very much.
Bought a coffee and left without ever seeing The Thing.
--------------------
Next
stop was at Dwayne’s, a little store near the Arizona/New Mexico state line that
sells nuts, dried fruits, and souvenirs.
Wanted to buy my mom some pecans which we couldn’t do because they were
all out. However, there was a food truck
outside...carne asada tacos for Kim and a BLT for me. Food trucks have become a new favorite thing
to do.
--------------------
Jumped ahead an hour when we entered New Mexico.
--------------------
Cruised in to Santa Rosa at about 11 p.m., expecting to find a place to
pull over to sleep in the camper. No
dice! Semi-trucks were crammed into
every available space. The hotels were all fairly crowded too, for that matter. Something big happening in Santa Rosa?
We
took 70 over to Alamogordo and then 54 right into Santa Rosa where we got on
I-40 East. Although it dipped down as
far as 46o the temperature was 58o when we hit Santa
Rosa. As usual I’m wearing shorts,
t-shirt and sandals because it was 90+ when we left in Picacho....perhaps a bit
underdressed for the current temperature.
--------------------
Right
now we heading to Tucumcari where, from our last stop there, we know there’s a
vacant Kmart parking lot in which trucks have stayed overnight. Have driven over 600 miles today. My body is saying it’s time to get out of the
truck! Hope there’s room at the Kmart.
OMGoodness! Tucumcari was also
packed to the gills with big rigs.
Cra-zee busy! BUT we managed to
find a spot in the former Kmart parking lot.
Pulled in at 12:05 a.m. having driven 631 miles. Time for bed!
No comments:
Post a Comment