Arkansas to New Mexico

September 22, 2011

Lucy and I woke up in Alma, Arkansas.  We packed our bags and then I quickly looked up a few cities in Texas that we might stop in later that evening.  I figured we could make it to Amarillo, Texas in a comfortable amount of time, so I looked up addresses and phone numbers for a few hotels there.  After writing all the information down, I shut off my laptop and packed it away with the rest of our things.  Then I said "Ok, let's go get breakfast."  Lucy, who had not made a peep that entire morning suddenly said "Breakfast is over!"  I looked at the clock.  It was 9:06 AM.

Me: "I thought breakfast ended at nine-thirty."
Lucy:  "No.  It ended at nine."
Me:  "Are you sure?"
Lucy: "Yes."
Me:  "Then why didn't you say something ten minutes ago?!"

Lucy just sort of glared at me which led me to believe that the reason she just sat there watching me look up addresses in Texas which I could absolutely have done later, while our free breakfast hour ticked to a close, was because she was still just a little bit miffed about the previous evening.  I'm sorry, Lucy.   know I shouldn't have been so mean.  I still think you're crazy for not saying anything, though.  Seriously, why would you deprive yourself of a FREE breakfast?!  It seems like self-preservation and economical interests would have urged you to say something about breakfast.  To this day, I still don't quite understand it.  Crazy girl.  :)

So, with breakfast over, we decided to just pack up the car and go.  Well, when we got out to the car Lucy started heaving bags around and shoving things in the trunk and dropping other things on the ground.  I think that if she could have thrown my bag down into a deep, muddy ravine, she would have.  Ok, maybe not.  But clearly, she was not happy.  Before Lucy could finish taking out her fury on our poor, innocent luggage, I asked her to unhand all of the baggage and finished packing the trunk myself, during which the following exchange took place:

Me:  "Do you want me to drop you off at an airport?!"
Lucy:  "MAYBE!"

A moment of quiet

Lucy:  "I don't see why it's my fault that we missed breakfast!"
Me:  "Lucy, it's not your fault!  I'm not even mad about that! (Baffled, but not mad). RELAX!"

With all of our luggage in the car, I headed back in to the hotel lobby to check-out while Lucy stayed with the car.  As I was checking out, I noticed a few of the housekeeping staff eating in the breakfast area.  I didn't want to inconvenience anyone, but I thought, "Hey, I mean, if there is still food there, it wouldn't be too much trouble if I just like grabbed a bagel to go, right?"  So I asked the girl at the desk if I could quickly grab a bagel from the breakfast room.  She said sure.  So I hurried into the breakfast room to get a bagel and cream cheese for Lucy, hoping that perhaps this little gift would appease her and make up for missing breakfast and for everything else that had happened in the past 15 hours.

I got back to the car and said something apologetic like, "Here, I got a bagel for you...if you want it."  Lucy said no, she didn't want it.  I sort of wondered if she was going on a hunger strike to punish me, but then she kindly offered to put cream cheese on the bagel if I wanted to have it.  I said, I wasn't super hungry, but I might like to have half the bagel.  So while I drove to a nearby gas station, filled the car with gas and went to buy us our obligatory travel sodas, Lucy put cream cheese on half a bagel.  I thought maybe she would have the other half...but I think she just threw her half away.  Still, I think the offer alone had sort of mollified her.  When I got back in the car, she handed me my half of the bagel with cream cheese on it.  And that is why, to this day, the bagel is a symbolic peace offering, at least to Lucy and I.  "Here, I got a bagel for you" actually means "I'm sorry" and "Do you want cream cheese" means "I forgive you."

We drove ALL day that day.  Traffic wasn't too bad, and the weather gradually improved the farther west we got.  We raced through the rest of Arkansas, the entire state of Oklahoma, and into the panhandle of Texas.  We stopped for lunch in a little place called Shamrock, Texas where we took a short little detour on historic route 66 and snapped this picture:

After lunch we continued on toward Amarillo, Texas.  That's where I had figured we would stop for the night, but, when we got to Amarillo it was still kind of early and we were still feeling pretty good.  So we decided to push on through and see how much farther we could get that day.

We entered New Mexico and the speed limit went up by 10 mph.  That alone was enough to make me love New Mexico.  But of course, in addition to higher speed limits, New Mexico greeted us with bright blue, sunny skies.  Not a cloud to be seen anywhere.  It was magnificent.

As dusk approached, we started reading freeway signs for towns with some respectable lodging options.  We settled on a place called Tucumcari, New Mexico.  Since we weren't exactly sure how to pronounce Tucumcari, we took to calling it T-Town.  We checked into a Quality Inn right near the interstate and had dinner right there at the hotel.  It was pretty good!  I had enchiladas.  Did you have enchiladas also, Lucy?  I can't remember.  But I do remember that the glasses our sodas came in were ENORMOUS.  

After dinner, we wandered through the hotel grounds.  They had some fine playground equipment which we felt obliged to test.

Lucy on the blue horse swing. 

Me on the slide.  I just sat on it for appearances.  I didn't slide down.  

We were very excited to see that the hotel had a jacuzzi.  Lucy reminded me she had forgotten to bring a bathing suit, but quickly added that she was willing to wear her clothes in the jacuzzi.  So that is exactly what happened.  We sat and soaked in the hot tub for like twenty minutes, I in my bathing suit, Lucy in her clothes.  It was a nice end to a very long day of driving.