Amarillo Welcome Centre, Texas
On Wednesday, Oct. 26th Gibbs was bothering Bill at 5 am. This time change will be confusing to him for a while so Bill took him out and they came back to bed until 6. I was chilly when I went up to bed last night around 8:30 so I couldn’t seem to drop off for long. It dropped down to about 45F/7C. When the boys came up at 10:30, they snuggled close so I warmed up. 😊
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| A nice morning start |
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| Then we hit fog |
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| It was quite odd but disappeared quickly |
We had
our cereal, made our hot drinks and drove across the lot to the Murphy USA
station to fuel up. We’re hoping prices will remain below the $5/gallon mark
the rest of the way, but not holding our breath either! We caught I-40W and
will stay on it for the whole day. Nice and Easy. By 7:20 we were crossing the
state line into Oklahoma. Too quick for me, no picture. LOL.
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| Everythiing in front of us was lit up beautifully by the sun |
The sun
was rising behind us so my best picture was in our side mirrors. 😊 The drive was uneventful, almost to a fault! It is easy
traveling and options are plentiful for fuel stations but it can be monotonous
staying on one highway for long periods of time. The day warmed up nicely and
by 9:30 we neared Shawnee and pulled into a Valero Fuel Stop.
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| Skyscrapers include the Devon Tower, City Place Tower and the First National Centre to name a few I had to look up their names |
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| Gibbs wasn't interested in any of the downtown and as long as Daddy kept moving, he slept |
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| I think this is one of the smartest ideas the U.S. does Maybe other provinces in Canada do it too, but not Ontario |
We weren’t needing fuel but the Rest Areas were either not Full Facility or not open. Again, once we’ve stopped for a decent amount of time, I need to update my GPS. We needed the break and topped up at $4.82/gal. Nice! Back on the road at 10 and ready for another stretch. We passed many familiar things.
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| The ScissorTail Bridge in the city is always deserving of a picture |
Oklahoma City was an easy skim through, even with construction until we hit a slow down on the west side of El Reno. Turns out it was more construction, with road repairs and they had narrowed the interstate to one lane on the west side. LOL Seemed like a long stretch of inconvenience for the short section that they were working on. But what do I know?
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| We think it was about 20 minutes Of course, there are the usual 'stinkers' who try to sneak up on the right and butt in Sometimes we notice transports drive the middle to stop them 😂 |
El Reno is a usual haunt for us, notice the Hallowe’en reference, where we turn north to the Lucky Star Casino for a night or two or three. Not today though. Finally, as things cleared and both lanes opened, we got our speed back up to 60 mph and motored on. The day is warming up nicely by now, 64F/18C, time to take my jacket off. 😊
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| Yay, I caught the Texas sign! |
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| Cotton fields - forever |
At 2:00
we started looking for a rest area and after crossing the state line into
Texas, that was easy. Oklahoma on I-40 is not good with those. Note to self. We
stopped at what I call the Texas Star Rest Stop. It’s big, it’s beautiful and
it’s always clean with room for us to park. It’s always surprising just how
windy it is up there on the hill. Our elevation had risen to 3000’ over the
last hour or so.
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| One of the nicest looking rest areas |
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| I had to get a picture of the entrance We also live in GrEy County back home |
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| Views from behind the rest area |
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| Inside the rest area - lots of information if you want it |
After hopping back in the truck, Bill noticed a Conoco just down the road. May as well fuel up now even though we only have about 45 miles to our destination. Fuel was $4.99/gal so another economical stop. Well, you know what I mean. Within 40 minutes we arrived at the Amarillo Travel Information Centre, in Texas.
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| Fuel up at the Conoco |
It is one
of our favourites for a quick overnight stay and we’ve never had a problem
finding a good spot. The truckers come in seldom seem to stay the whole night. It
was 3:30, 70F/21C and quite windy. Our elevation has reached about 3500’ so we
have done some climbing today and after 8 ½ hours of driving, we are ‘happy’ tired.
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| Can't miss a picture of the Leaning tower of Britten!! |
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| The back leg is off the ground but as I often say 'is it tilted more?' we don't think it has moved since 2016 |
I notified Donna of our arrival, she is the
worrier when we’re traveling ♥, then boiled the kettle for a cup of tea. Our batteries were at 13.0 but
no point in pulling them down when I don’t have to.
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| Our spot for the night, looking to the southwest |
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| Lookiing towards the east |
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| View from the east front corner |
When my
tea was done I went for a quick walk in the wind to take pictures. Thank
heavens for short hair, it blew around but never got in my face! 😊 This has been a good day of
travel and we are 9 hours closer to our final destination. Each day the
destination changes, I know, but we do have a goal.
For supper, we cleaned up the chili from one container and I added a few brown beans to make enough for two. We split a small cherry pie and we were full.
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| a lovely sunset behind the bush Good night! |
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| I took a picture of this field of 'something' I know it's blurry from us moving but does anyone from this area know what it is? |
Thank you
for the visit. Your comments are always appreciated!