Sunday - November 18, 2007

Today was another gorgeous day with a high of 23C (73F). Today we drove through Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas and then New Mexico. When we entered New Mexico we changed to Mountain Time so gained an hour, now we are 2 hours behind Waterloo.

I had planned on a short day today and thought we would stop around Tucumcari as I needed some groceries and wanted to do laundry. When we got to Tucumcari John suggested we go on to Santa Rosa and then before Santa Rosa suggested we go right through to Albuquerque so that is what we did and we ended up driving 692 km (433 miles) – so much for a short day!

Today we saw a real variety of landscapes – from the Midwest Plains to the scrub country of Texas to the mountains of New Mexico. We passed quite a few feedlots with thousands of cattle, sure could smell them as well as see them! We again saw numerous trains before getting on the Interstate at Tucumcari and one we passed that was pulled over on a siding had 3 engines, 103 cars and was 1.8 km in length – can you imagine waiting for that at a level crossing!

We really enjoyed the route through Iowa, Kansas etc. and it was nice to miss all the big cities – i.e. Indianapolis, St. Louis, Oklahoma City etc. It was pretty well the same distance as going through the above cities but took us a day less than the first time we came to Arizona in January of 2006, we certainly would take this route again as it is so nice to drive on quieter interstates as well as good US secondary highways.

When we got to High Desert RV Park we unhooked and headed to Camping World, then to Wal Mart for groceries so it was after 7 when we got home. I picked up a cooked chicken for dinner, at a cost of $4.49, as well as a couple of salads so that was an easy dinner and John didn’t have to worry about barbecuing. The laundry didn’t get done so I am going to insist on a shorter day tomorrow so I can get it done. I feel totally wiped and am having trouble keeping my eyes open so am off to bed. No internet tonight, we could get it but it costs $4.99 for 24 hours so I am not going to waste my money, the place I want to stop at tomorrow has free wi-fi so will wait till then.