Placitas, NM

We had a quiet couple of days visiting Lisa and Jeanie. I caught up with some HOA work and plotted our return course. Their hot tub wasn’t working, so I did a little troubleshooting. The verdict was, “Call for service.”

Our only outing was dinner at their favorite restaurant in Bernalillo, NM.

Placitas, NM to Shamrock, TX

We got ourselves up early and said goodbye to Lisa and Jeanie. The temperature was cool (70+- deg.) all morning. We headed east, passing and being passed by several trucks. Once we were far enough away from Albuquerque, the traffic settled down.

Love’s for our morning break.

Buc-ee’s outside of Amarillo, TX, for gas.

A rest area across the street from Buc-ee’s. As you can tell from the expression on Beth’s face, it was starting to warm up.

Interesting tid-bit: As you probably know, big rigs are not allowed in Buc-ee’s. The truck driver, who was parked next to us in the rest area, walked across the street and bought his lunch at Buc-ee’s. There’s a solution to every obstacle.

It was in the 90’s all afternoon, but we got to our hotel by 4:30 p.m. and took refreshing showers shortly after depositing all our stuff in our room.

Shamrock, TX to Van Buren, AR

We got a little bit of late start this morning. The temperature was not so cool as it was yesterday. There weren’t too many trucks on the highway as they were delayed at a check point east of Shamrock.

Break time was at a Loves/Sonic.

It was too hot to find a park for lunch. All the rest areas we passed had no picnic tables and no rest rooms. We ate in a convenience store that had a Dunkin Donuts and a Pizza concession. We had ham and cheese croissants from Dunkin.

The store had lots of junky stuff for sale. This box of seven dolls caught my eye.

I thought, “Who buys seven dolls for a kid?” Beth thought, “Who sells white Barbies in native American tribal lands?” We were in the Oklahoma Seminole area.

The afternoon was very hot – 99 degrees – and made worse by the humidity and several construction zones. Our wet vests don’t work when the humidity is high.

We checked into our hotel about 4:30 p.m. and, just like yesterday, showers were first on the list of things to do.

Statistics:

Thursday: 398 miles
Friday: 354 miles

Total miles: 5,993 – you can round up to 6,000.