Oklahoma and Texas and New Mexico Oh My

17 November 2017

We have been traveling a lot in the last year and picking hotels without employer constraints, so it has been a little different than work or vacation travel. We've slowly come to realize that we are pretty much Marriott people. We really don't want to pay for much more, and there are very rarely unpleasant surprises for us. That said, I really think there needs to be a little more standardization on the maximum number of tissue squares per flush. I will speak no more about this.

We left the hotel in Okla City in the morning earlier than usual, mostly to try and avoid eye contact with the housekeeping staff. For road food it's frequently McDonalds, but we needed a break from that break today. I'm looking for four plus stars on Yelp, one dollar sign and easy on easy off the freeway. We had lunch in Amarillo at a place called Blue Sky and it was a great burger joint. Everything was big and tasty. Any place where green chili is a condiment is well on its way to greatness.

Unlike on the boat, in the car I do most of the driving (and have never run aground). I usually waver between not minding it and liking it to some degree, and Heather really isn't fond of it. For some reason I was tired of it, so after we filled up the tank in Amarillo Heather got behind the wheel. A few miles down the road we remembered to reset the odometer so we could keep track of our fabulous gas mileage. I nodded off for a while, probably tired after the emotional fatigue of the night before. That and well, Texas.

I woke to Heather weaving down the road and singing some sort of nonsensical song quietly to herself. One or the other is not so alarming, but at the same time indicated something was wrong. I asked her, and her wide eyes locked onto mine, desperate for some sort of human contact. She wailed that it all looked the same and she couldn't take any more. I glanced down and noted per the trip odometer she had racked up a little more than 27 miles (not a typo). I guess it was my turn again.

We had talked about doing some sort of books on tape but had never gotten around to it. While getting to a place where we could switch drivers I downloaded the first Harry Potter book on Audible. We had listened to the first half by the time we got to Albuquerque, and it really made the rest of the day's drive much more tolerable.

We filled up again just past the New Mexico state line (did I mention the fabulous gas mileage?) at a place called Russell's Travel Center. Heather went inside to go to the bathroom. When she came back she said to lock up the car because I needed to see this. In the back of the store was an auto museum with more than a dozen classic cars intermixed with music and movie memorabilia and a full sized Yoda. America at its best.

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