A quick entry, photos will be forthcoming:
Dave's cousin Dennis arrived at DFW at 2 pm Friday afternoon. His original flight was canceled by American Airlines ("we know why you fly", uh, apparently not). He was notified by AA in the wee hours of the morning of the cancellation, and he scrambled to get the flight he arrived on which only put him into Dallas a few hours later than originally scheduled. As it worked out, I needed more time to get ready for the trip because it just so happened Apple released a new, much anticipated firmware update for the iphone (which I own) the morning of our departure. Well not only was I excited to get the new update, but so were about two million other iphone owners, as we were trying to download and install the update at the same time. The Apple servers crashed during the update, my phone with all my phone contacts and music became an expensive brushed aluminum brick. I persevered and kept trying to complete the install hoping I could use my phone and at least some of it's functions. After a couple of hours of pinging the Apple server, I got most of my data installed except for a bunch of web sites I had saved.
Dave swung by to pick me up and repack the car to put more junk in the back. We were off for DFW and cousin Dennis. We stopped for a quick bite to eat at the Whataburger on Lemmon, ( I went to school with the founder of Whataburger's daughter, but that's another story) and headed toward DFW. We were going to be too early for his flight so we stopped at a Carnival food store in Irving. It's a nice little chain owned by the Minyard family. If you want ANY kind of Mexican spice, sauce, pig part, (yes, hooves and heads are available for your family recipes) fresh garlic, rows of tortillas, etc. it's the place to go. We decided the pig heads weren't fresh so we passed and opted for shaving cream, a deck of cards, double A batteries, hand sanitizer and a can of Goya pear juice.
We left Carnival with all the essentials and realized that we still had time to kill before Dennis' flight so we stopped at Toyota of Irving to hassle the car salesmen there. We kicked some tires wasted some time (theirs and ours) and got to the airport just as Dennis deplaned. We scooped up his bag ( thank God he only had one!) and down the road we went. We made a quick stop at Arby's since Dennis hadn't had a bite all day. Refueled with more processed beef, we were out the door like a West Texas wind.
The drive to Amarillo was uneventful. We stopped at the Golden Light Cafe,
http://goldenlightcafe.com/our usual first stop on our trips out west. We were welcomed with open arms by the staff there who had remembered us from our annual journeys there. After having some refreshments we walked across the street to the biker bar formally known as "Gators". We were saddened to learn that the manager of Gators had given the lease up to the owner of the building. He was an ex cop who was very friendly to us. In previous years as was the local custom, we had placed a dollar bill on the wall with our name and the date we visited. We were cheap and used the same bill for the past few years. But since the ex cop lost his lease, he took down all the dollars that had been on the wall for years, including ours. We can't be too upset because we heard that he had been diagnosed with liver cancer and had gone to Iraq to make as much money as possible for his family before the inevitable end. We talked to the new owner into letting us start a new bill mounting tradition so we will see if they are displayed either on the way back on this trip or possibly next year.
We left Amarillo heading due west to our final destination of the day, Tucumcari, New Mexico.
On the way we made a brief stop at the Frontier in Albuquerque located across the street from the University of New Mexico so I could have my cheeseburger fix.
I thought it might be fun to stay at the Blue Swallow Motel in Tucumcari which has been given National Landmark status, located on historic Route 66
http://www.blueswallowmotel.com/but they were booked. The innkeeper suggested the Motel Safari ("American owned", "Serta pillow top mattresses", "Flat panel screen TV", "look for the camel on the sign")
http://smalltown-america.com/smalltown-america_properties.phpthat was nearby.
Waking up to a heavy drizzle at the Safari Motel the next morning. The rain would plague us every day of the trip.The motel has been updated and it's the nicest motel I've been in. It's the only hotel I've ever been to that had a remote control for the air conditioner. And so that is where we have alighted for the evening. It's 3 am Dallas time as I post this and that pillow top mattress has it's work cut out for it...
Tomorrow it's on to Flagstaff, AZ.
PS. A little travel math for those folks apprehensive about taking a road trip this summer: I figured that we are spending about 5 cents a mile per person in gas. Not bad, we're getting about 25 mpg in a fully loaded (800 lb+ cargo and people) car. We'd have to travel by pipeline to travel any cheaper.
The sandy drive to the entrance of the canyon.
The entrance of the canyon.
We decided there was too much scenery to photograph than the light allowed, so we decided to stay nearby in Mexican Hat, Utah for the night and backtrack to Monument Valley in the morning. It's a small fishing village that caters to catfish hunters.The only motel with a vacancy that we affectionately called the "Bates Motel" was a ramshackle affair with sliding glass doors as the entrance to each room. We arrived late but the manager was kind enough to phone the local diner to stay open for three more hungry travelers. We were quite lucky as this diner had excellent fare. I partook of the excellent beef stew served with a platter size piece of Indian fry bread. The next morning after an excellent breakfast at the diner we ate a late dinner the night before, we headed back to Monument Valley in the morning light.
Forest Gump stopped running at this spot
A midget among giants
