Santa Fe, New Mexico to Mineola, Texas
Thursday, May 8
Santa Fe to Santa Rosa, New Mexico
We knew we were going to have a long ride today, so we set the alarm last night to insure an early start. Sure enough, the alarm went off when it was supposed to, and that might have been a harbinger of what was to come.
After we took our showers, Barbara had an intestinal attack of some kind, so she laid back down until she was feeling better. I went ahead and got Taz and the trailer loaded and ready for the day, and then, with Barbara feeling better, we loaded up, had Max take a couple of photos of us, said our goodbyes, and headed out of Santa Fe with Amarillo (at the very least) on our minds.
Our planned route this morning was I-25 to U.S. 285, then south on 285 to Clines Corner, and then east on I-40 to Amarillo.
It was a cold morning...temperatures in the mid to upper 50's when we left, and it didn't take long until the winds started to get up. Wind wasn't much of a problem on I-25, but it started getting pretty rough as we turned south on U.S. 285 toward Lamy and Clines Corner.
Still, Barbara was able to handle the camera (though she had to take off a glove for some of the shots) and she captured the vastness and special beauty of the New Mexico high desert. We've seen a lot of beautiful country on this adventure, Redwood forests, high mountains, and Pacific shorelines, but there is something special and captivating to us about New Mexico mornings.
We were moving at a pretty good clip with a pickup in front of us and a motorhome in front of the pickup, but everyone was doing at least the speed limit, and that was plenty good for us, especially when we factored in the wind chill from riding at 56 miles per hour.
About 20 miles north of Clines Corner, we suddenly spotted a group of deer jumping the fence on our right and charging in front of the motorhome. Brake lights started flaring and vehicles came to a screeching halt with brakes locked as we tried to avoid anyone hitting a deer or anything else for that matter.
Some of the deer kept bounding in front of the stopped vehicles, but others stopped, assessed the situation, and turned around to leap back over the fence to go back to the west.
By this time, Barbara had the camera back in action. If you look closely, you can see a couple of the deer on the left side of the photo.
This one also got away, but Barbara was able to get a better shot.
I'm sure there were puckers in the seat covers for all the vehicles involved, (including the one that came to a screeching halt behind us...glad he stopped, because there was nothing we were going to be able to do about it), but we were all moving again in just a bit. I don't know about the other drivers, but I developed a serious case of swivel neck checking both sides of the highway for any more interlopers until we got to Clines Corner.
As we turned to the west on I-40, the wind decided to turn out of the south-southwest and gain in velocity. We were really taking a beating from the wind and cold, and by the time we got to Santa Rosa, Barbara was feeling sick again, so we elected to turn off, found a Best Western Motel on the west end of town, and went in to see if there was any possibility that at 9:30 in the morning we might be able to get Barbara into a room and into bed.
When he heard our story, Mr. Patel, the manager, immediately bumped us ahead of some customers who were preparing to check out and leave. He got us into a room that hadn't been used last night and said to let him know if we needed anything.
While I finished the check-in procedure, Barbara walked over to the room and was already in bed by the time I parked Taz, so I unpacked what we would need for the stay and got things set up in the room.
From there, the day went downhill fast. Barbara was very sick, probably, we finally decided, from food poisoning. We reviewed everything we had eaten the last two days, and the only thing she ate that one of more of the rest of us hadn't eaten in Santa Fe was some tuna pasta at Souper Salad. She said she took a bite of the tuna and it didn't taste good, so she didn't eat any more of it.
Whatever it was that was wrong, Barbara had it bad. I rode to the grocery store to get some crackers and soup, but they just bounced right back up. The only thing she could do was eat ice chips and have an occasional saltine...and sleep.
Luckily for me, there was a Denny's next door, so I took my meals there and then returned to the room to pretend to be a male nurse. I even consulted with friends Amanda Duke and Nancy Terpening, but they said there wasn't much we could do about it until it had run its course.
On the good side, the break did give me time to review close to a thousand photos of the trip and do some work on the journal blog. And, we both had some time to do some reading.
The day ended with Barbara not doing any better, but she didn't seem to be doing any worse either.
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Friday, May 9 - Santa Rosa
Today was more of the same...Barbara was still sick...sick enough that I went to the motel office to check on taxi service in case we needed to go to the local hospital. I found there is no taxi or shuttle service in Santa Rosa, but the girl at the front desk said if we needed to go to the hospital to check with the manager and he would arrange to get us there.
Luckily, it didn't come to that, and we were able to ride out the day and see some signs of improvement. The improvement was in slow increments, but it was there, so we just kicked back, relaxed the best we could, and waited until we felt we could move on again.
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Saturday, May 10 - Santa Rosa, New Mexico, to Clarendon, Texas
Barbara woke up this morning and decided she was ready to travel, so we ginned around to get all the morning chores done, packed and loaded Taz and the trailer, took a last look at our "infirmary," checked out of the motel, and said goodbye to Santa Rosa.
It was a much nicer morning for travel than when we started from Santa Fe. Our goal was to make as many miles as we could as soon as we could, so I bumped the cruise control up a few notches and we rolled down the highway toward Amarillo (or wherever) while Barbara occupied her time by taking photos of the various landscapes sailing by.
We made it to Tucumcari in almost record time and decided we'd stop there for a bite of Sonic breakfast. The lot at Sonic was almost empty, so we figured we'd get in and out in good time...WRONG! When we finally got our order, we voted that the motto for this place must be, "We may be slow, but we'll get your order wrong every time!"
Tucumcari is where Barbara lived for a short time after moving from Hobbs at the end of her junior year in high school. Her father, W.T. Perry, was in his first ministerial position as associate minister at the Methodist church here. During that time, Barbara became known as Barbara Perry from Tucumcari. Now that's a little history you won't find in any of the books.
We said goodbye to Tucumcari, got back on I-40 East, and headed past the outskirts of town.
And on toward Texas...
We made it!!! We're finally back in the great state...many miles yet to go, but no more state lines to cross.
Yep...We're truckin' on...
The fence and power lines are all that's between here and the North Pole. When the winter wind and snow come howling across here, it gets mighty cold!
Taz was giving indications of getting thirsty, so we stopped in Vega for gas and a bit of a break. Vega isn't much more than a wide spot in the road, but it was in our district when I was teaching in Bovina many years ago, so I made more than my share of trips up here.
It was only a hop, skip, and a jump from Vega to Amarillo. The day was still young (kind of), so we decided we'd get as far beyond Amarillo (and its traffic) as possible.
We had put the cameras away at Vega, but Barbara managed to get this shot from her cell phone.
Amarillo Air Force Base is where I was stationed in the 589th USAF Band from 1966-1967. The DOD closed the base and shipped the band to MacDill AFB at Tampa, Florida, in January of 1968.
Amarillo was also a stop and shop place for Barbara and me when we lived in Liberal, Kansas. It was a natural stop for refueling whenever we traveled south to Lubbock or southwest to Artesia.
We rolled on through Amarillo, caught U.S. 287 west of town, and went on to Claude, where we stopped to top off the tank for the next leg of the trip, It was beginning to warm up quite a bit, so we got rid of the coats and voted that we'd stop at the next Best Western down the road and call it a day.
By the way, if you happen to be traveling this highway and have some time to spare, drive south of Claude on Texas 207 for a few miles and check out some gorgeous views of the back side of Palo Duro Canyon...there are some amazing views available there.
We left Claude and rode on to Clarendon where we found a Best Western with availability and decent rates...took that as a sign that we'd gone far enough for one day, so we checked in and unloaded what we'd need for the night. While Barbara was setting up the room, I walked over to the Sonic in the next lot and ordered a couple of Grilled Chicken Wraps for our supper. The folks who run this Sonic must be kin to those in Tucumcari; when I got back to the room, we found that we had Grilled Chicken Sandwiches...not even close, but it wasn't worth the trouble to go back and make it right.
And in any case, we were in a nice, cool room and settled in for a relaxing evening, and that counted for a lot.
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Sunday, May 11 - Clarendon to Mineola, Texas
We set the alarm for 5:00 this morning, hoping to be away from Clarendon by 6:00. It didn't work out quite the way we planned, but we were packed, loaded, and on the road at 6:45...still pretty early for us.
Our goal for the day was to ride hard and fast and cover as many miles as possible until we gave out. When the winds got up early in the ride, we began wondering just how far we could possibly make it before having to give up. Barbara was still sick....she hadn't had a real meal for three days and was on the verge of dehydration, but she wanted to get home, so we just rode....and rode...and rode.
Faithful readers may discern the lack of the usual number of photos of today's trip. The truth is that we knew when we started the day that the wind would make it not only difficult, but probably dangerous to be dealing with a camera, so we elected to focus on the road, rather than the landscapes.
We stopped in Childress for gas and a short break. It was beginning to look like we'd have more gas stops because of the wind...we definitely weren't getting the mileage we'd enjoyed through most of the trip.
Not wanting to let the gas gauge drop too low, we stopped again in Vernon for gas for Taz and McBreakfast for us...the first food Barbara had been able to handle for the last two days. We agreed that we'd keep going, but if either of us felt like we had to quit for the day, we'd find the nearest motel and call it quits.
With the wind still blasting us broadside, we rode on to and through Wichita Falls, stopping shortly on the east side of town for another refueling. We were still a long way from Mineola, but we felt we could make another couple of hours before having to give up for the day. Our options were to turn off at Henrietta and ride east to Gainesville, where we knew we could find something just a couple of hours from home, or follow the suggestion of the GPS and ride to Fort Worth before turning east.
We knew the wind would continue to beat us up if we turned off at Henrietta, but there was a chance that by going toward Fort Worth, it would be more of a headwind...not so good for gas mileage, but a lot easier for me to handle Taz and for Barbara to ride. So we made the decision to keep going south on U.S. 287, but by the time we got to Decatur, Barbara said she needed to stop...it was getting to be too much. We pulled over to the side of the road for a short break and then rode on through Decatur, but didn't see a place that we wanted to stay, so we agreed to keep on going.
After another fuel stop and rest break near New Fairview, we adopted the mantra, "We can do this!" The wind wasn't beating us up as badly while we were headed south, and we felt that we could probably get through Dallas and Fort Worth easily enough on a Sunday afternoon...and, we knew that there was a great Best Western in Terrell where we could stop for the evening.
With Barbara navigating (thank goodness for the intercom system), we got off of 287 and followed other highways right into downtown Dallas where we picked up I-35 E South to I-30 E, to U.S. 80. Barbara was feeling better now that we were this far, so she broke out her cell phone and used the camera on it to document where we were.
We were worn out by the time we got to Forney, so we stopped for a meal break at Sonic (they got the order wrong, too, so it felt almost like being at home).
We started up again, but by the time we got to Terrell, we knew we could make it to Mineola if the wind didn't get any worse. We sailed on around Terrell to I-20, ratcheted the cruise control up a couple of notches, and even began feeling better about the trip as we got closer to Canton, where we had to stop for one last tank of gas. After all, it would have been really sad to run out of gas less than 20 miles from home.
We were feeling so much better that we were actually enjoying seeing the familiar landscape along I-20.
We were soon rolling again, this time without stopping as we raced through Canton on I-20, turned of on Texas 19 a few miles east of Canton, and continued on through Grand Saline toward Mineola, just thirteen miles away.
A mile east of Grand Saline we saw one of the prettiest sights we'd encountered all day.
We were still tired, but our hearts were lighter as we knew we would make it home on a day when we had put on the most miles (385) and most hours (just shy of 8) of any day of the adventure. I even bumped the cruise control up another notch or two to get us there faster.
We reached the Mineola city limits, then the turnoff to the loop.
And on around to Heritage Square and 1723 Heritage Drive. Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home, even if the yard is a little overgrown.
We pulled into the driveway, got off of Taz, and Barbara went inside to check the house while I started unloading our "stuff." Usually when we return from a trip, we unload, unpack, put away everything, and start the washing machine. That didn't happen today. When everything was unloaded and dumped on the bed in the extra bedroom, we headed straight for bed to take a long overdue afternoon nap...and we didn't care if it lasted until midnight!!!
We were home...after 32 days on the road through 8 states and covering a total of 5,235.4 miles on Taz. The adventure that we had dreamed about for nearly 20 years was now in the past, and we were grateful for every day and every mile...and grateful most of all for God's protection and the prayers of so many family members and friends throughout the trip.
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"No one realizes how beautiful it is to travel until he comes home and rests his head on his old, familiar pillow." - Lin Yutang
Ready to sleep on our own bed,
Jim/Dad/Gramps and Barbara/Mom/Grams/Gramsy
