This year we made the trip down in three days, doing the same on the way back. I am not able to drive yet, so Joel is behind the wheel the whole time. We stop every 2 hours to get out and walk and take bathroom breaks. It makes the days last around 10 hours IF you do not have car issues. On the way down we kept getting a low tie sensor flashing. We stopped in the small town of Liberal Kansas way off the beaten track and the mechanics at the Wal-Mart auto repair tried hard to find the problem. They did not find anything so therefore they did not charge us! That was nice.....and eating in the parking lot out back by the shop was not so bad. At least we had forks to use. One time I packed us salads when traveling to South Dakota and forgot the forks. So we ate Filipino style....or at least the way they ate rice....with their fingers. Eating salads with our fingers was an adventure, one Joel hopes not to repeat! On the way back we had the same issue with the sensor coming on, so we had to stop again....in Tucumcari NM this time and a mechanic was nice enough to check the tires and balance them out with more air. We also had our brakes fixed in Mesa....they were shaking and vibrating the van so bad by the time we got down the 6,000 ft. descent from Flagstaff to Phoenix that it was darn right scary.
We saw some beautiful scenery in New Mexico and Arizona. A variety of mountains were available for us to view.......some dark blue with snow on the peaks, others red, and yet other brown desert mountains with saguaros growing out of them on the smallest of ledges. Once we entered into east Kansas, Missouri, and Iowa we noticed how green everything was again. So many shades of green to see.
Iowa green..........and Amish mode of travel
We did not visit with many people on the way down or back, but Joel found a guy who was driving a Tesla electric car. The hotel we were at actually had places for the electric cars to plug in and charge up. This guy had driven from California, so he and Joel had quite a visit about, costs, conveniences, and more.
As I said before, a few were clean, but most bathrooms were unclean and some were appalling. I know they get a lot of traffic in and out, but I would think that keeping them clean would be important. Sigh...........
We always enjoy hearing the different accents as we travel from location to location. When we were in Amarillo TX I asked a woman a question about ordering in a deli we were in and when she replied it was in a drawn out Texas drawl. While we ate lunch you could hear many talking the same....Joel said to me, "Listen to the accents!" I replied, 'In here we are the only ones with an accent!" Wonder if it is hard for others to understand us the way it sometimes is for us to understand?
We saw lots of trucks on the road, many suvs and vans, and quite a few 5th wheelers heading home from the warmer climates I expect. One day when Joel was weary of Interstate travel we heading north on a nice two lane road that took us into Enid Oklahoma...where there is an Air Force Base. Being Joel was in the Air Force 8 years, we are always drawn to bases and such.
We had not been in Enid OK or Amarillo TX so it was fun to get a feel for those places. There are so many places to experience in our big and beautiful country.
If we did not have to take Joel's recumbent bike, we would not have driven down to AZ this year, we would have flown as it takes so much less time out of our planned visits. We did have lots of time to visit and lots of time to check out the scenery or listen to music and tapes if we wished.
We have a few places on our bucket list that would require some traveling on America's highways. It is always fun to see someplace new and take in all that God has created along the way.
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