Prologue - Day three

Prologue - Day Two
September 2, 2024
El Reno, Ok. to Gallups, NM

I haven't been sleeping very well and last night wasn't an exception. I woke at 3:00 am and it took me a while to get back to sleep. I finally fell asleep but the sleep was restless and seemed like it didn't do much good. So by 5:00 I was back awake and we began to rustle ourselves out of bed around 5:30. I leaned the mattress back against the back wall and fastened it so it wouldn't fall. If this was in your house, you might call it a Murphy bed, so we will pretend that's what it is in our trailer-turned camper. I fired up the stove and soon the coffee was ground and the water was just about ready to boil. The aroma of fresh brewing coffee hit our nostrils and soon our brains responded to the caffeine hitting our blood streams.

Toilet duties at Walmart, brushing our teeth, fastening our crates so they wouldn't slide around too much during the day's ride and we were ready to hit the road. We gave up on seeing too much of Route 66 since we didn't have the time available to putz our way west to San Diego. So our plan was to hit I-40 West and rack up miles behind us. We had about 1300 miles yet and wanted to get at least half of them under our belts before calling it a day. Western Oklahoma and Texas were as you might expect, grassland, cattle, and some crops; lather, rinse, repeat. We finished off Texas and hit New Mexico and it was more of the same until we approached Albuquerque, when we began to hit some hills but then flattened out again as we left the city. The terrain did change a lot after the city and we saw flatlands, but with a lot of Mesas in the distance. They were beautiful, in a rugged sort of way.

We filled up with gas and headed out for Gallup, NM. We passed through Navajo country and we began to get cravings for some fry bread. As we approached Gallup, Dana began to search online for some locally owned restaurants, preferably with some typical Navajo foods. We decided we would eat at Route 66 Railway Cafe. We arrived and it was an old diner first built in the 1940s. Originally, it was a diner, then at some point, Dunkin Donuts moved in, with several more changes before the current owner bought it a while back and turned it back into a diner. All their food is made fresh and only uses a freezer for his fries and zucchini. I ordered the Navajo Burger. It was an elongated burger topped with a green tomato, lettuce, cucumbers, pickles and, get this, instead of a bun, there was fry bread. It was big, it was delicious, and it was almost more than I could handle. Dana settled for chicken enchiladas. We had plenty to eat and waddled out to our vehicle and headed to our third consecutive Walmart parking lot overnighter.

If all goes well, we will land in San Diego tomorrow evening and begin to prep for the trip east.

Cheers all.Read more