We are here, at the RPI rate of $77.00 a week, because it is just a mile from Gene's house (Donna's brother) and he will be watching the cats while we will be on our trip to Texas. And we wanted hookups because of a cold front coming through.
And what a fast trip it was!
We picked up a rental car (Nisson Versa) on Friday the 27th. And we got up at 3:30 AM and were on the road at 4 AM Saturday morning ... Arf ....
Passed through Flagstaff as it was getting light. Hmmm, snow along the road. It was 24 degrees out. Yikes!
Stopped off in Winslow to get our picture on the corner.
Rats! The lighting sucked for taking pictures. Oh well, we'll get back through here again I'm sure.
Next we passed through Albuquerque. I wanted to take a quick drive by on Kirtland AFB, where I was stationed back in 1972/73. I was stopped at the gate and they said no to my visit. Boo Hoo.
Onward.
Headed south on Highway 285 and passed through some snowy country.
Then on into Roswell. I wanted to check out the Aliens here.
But again ... no time this time.
We stopped for the night at 5:30 PM in Carlsbad, NM at a Motel 8. Over 800 miles driven today. Arf ...
Sunday morning, we left again at 4 AM, for a shorter driving day. But not by much.
We drove by lots of oil fields. There were natural gas flame tubes burning all around us as we headed down Highway 285 and into Texas.
Once in Texas, we were on Interstate 10 and the speed limit was 80. Cool! I set the cruise control to 83 and sailed across Texas. Man! Texas is big!
Being a Sunday, the traffic wasn't too bad through San Antonio. Would have loved to swing by the Alamo and the Riverwalk, but not this trip.
Drive, drive, drive.
Traffic got a bit funky between San Antonio and Houston, but once the road increased to 3, 4, or more lanes, we actually cruised through Houston pretty good.
Just on the back side of Houston, we turned north on Highway 59 and reached our Motel 6 in Cleveland around 5 PM. Over 600 miles that day, but we made it and will spend 2 nights here.
The next day, we made it to Donna's PCP doctor appointment in Livingston and everything went good.
Then we stopped off at Rainbow's End Escapee Park.
And checked our mail.
Back to the motel ... mission accomplished.
Tuesday morning, we were off again at 4 AM heading home. We took a different route this time. We took Highway 290 west to Fredericksburg and then onto Interstate 10, bypassing Houston and San Antonio. We did go through Austin. It wasn't too bad.
Our last stop was in a Day's End Motel in Deming, NM. El Paso traffic sucked pretty good. Construction and a big accident didn't help at all.
The last leg, today, was through Tucson, no problem, and around Phoenix via Gila Bend.
We got home right at 4 PM. Boy, glad this trip is over. Our cats were sure happy to see us. Thank you Gene, for watching our 'kids'.
We put over 3000 miles on the rental car.
Good night folks. I think we are sleeping in tomorrow.
That is a crazy whirlwind trip! Glad everything went okay.
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