The journey began early on a Friday morning, as I believe we were on the road slightly before 5:30AM. This was one of three horribly long driving days where we would arrive at our destination during the night. Magan took some pictures of everyone smiling, then 10 minutes later out and sleeping. This was just a long day of driving, and Granny and Granddaddy's first exposure to my extremely slow driving. I left on this journey recognizing that my tires should have probably been changed, and that was a constant fear of mine throughout this first day. We have had a string of bad luck with the blue van and Sam's escape that left me with a constant dread that something bad would happen on the roads. Lots of silent prayers were said by me at each stop and each fill up, throughout this trip, but mainly on these long long driving days.
Approaching Memphis, I woke everyone up so they could see us drive over the Mississippi River, only I did not realize that we still had another turn, then another 25 minute drive to that bridge, which somewhat dampened the excitement by the time we reached the mighty river. After Memphis, I remember a string of fast fast drivers that made me feel extremely uncomfortable. Two red cars from Florida slowing us all down, then speeding past us. One trailer deciding to come to a complete stop in front of Granddaddy leaving them with slammed brakes and inches of clearance going from 65 mph to 10 mph in a few seconds.
Voices from the back told us they were watching movies and "drawling" pictures. We all were mesmerized by the number of windmills as we crossed Oklahoma, especially near this teepee gas station below. The wind was so strong. And on these journeys, I try to find at least some recognizable food items that are vegetables, so we had a detour for supper that took us to old Route 66, and a VERY SLOW KFC. And this is a KFC that we remembered for the rest of the journey because after a few bites of my potatoes and gravy, I closed the lid, and somehow it shot gravy all over the windshield, the dashboard, the side windows. It really went all over so much that we finally cleaned the last portion of gravy off on Day 18 when we were almost home.
As night fell on our first day into this journey, the red devil lights of the windmills starting flashing all around us. It was somewhat disturbing, and I did not like it while I was driving, but who does like devil windmill lights. We pulled into a Fairfield Inn in Amarillo TX for our first night. Late arrival after 10, but glad to have finished almost 1000 miles of our journey. We have started to get a feel of the wide west with flat no tree zones in Texas, and long stretches of I40 with no gas stations, food, exists or bathrooms.
No comments:
Post a Comment