December 29/12 - Santa Rosa NM

Well, another day done and we travelled 1045 km, a record day for us!

This morning we started out with a great breakfast with many choices of cereal, fruit, yogurt, all kinds of bread, bagels etc., scrambled eggs, home fries, sausage patties and biscuits and gravy. Lots of juice & hot coffee to wash it down.

Kel, to answer your question re the three free drinks last night there were lots of choices with the draft beer being Bud Light, and all kinds of wine & liquor - even Margaritas, plus non alcoholic drinks.

When we got in the truck at 8 am this morning the temperature was -8C (17F) - BRRRR!! We had to put on gloves until the truck warmed up and we were really glad we had brought anything that could freeze into the hotel last night.

Today's drive was pretty boring going through the Great Plains, very flat for miles on end, we saw lots of hay bales, some cotton bales and lots of cattle. Tulsa and Oklahoma City were a breeze, the bonus of going through on a Saturday! Amarillo is quite spread out and it was fairly busy going through there. There is a huge windmill area around Weatherford OK, we saw that back in 2006. Today we came across miles and miles of windmills just east of Amarillo, we hadn't seen them before and were surprised at how many there were and that they were pretty well all moving.

The high temperature today was 9C (48F) and it was sunny all day. At different times we saw a fair bit of snow in the ditches but the roads were dry and good all day. By the time we stopped tonight it was -1C so I think it will be another chilly night.

Originally we had planned on stopping in Tucumcari NM for the night but when we crossed into New Mexico we changed to Mountain Time and gained another hour so decided to come on to Santa Rosa. We are now two hours behind home in time.

We stopped at the New Mexico Welcome Centre and a man came over to John and asked if we had been in Joplin last night. Turns out they also stayed at the Drury Inn last night and he remembered John and even funnier they are from Hamilton ON. They also left on Thursday and are headed for Green Valley, AZ, south of Tucson. At least I knew where Green Valley is as one of the volunteers at the Grand River Cancer Centre goes there so we have had a few chats about Arizona over the last year.

And so ends another great gift of a day and we look forward to another great day tomorrow.