On The Oregon Trail – Day #7

Gallup, NM to Boulder City, NV. Started in western New Mexico and ended in very eastern Nevada with 359 miles of Arizona in the middle. And it was a whole lot of barren desert landscape. The only bright spot was the town of Flagstaff. It had a young, hip, vibrant, outdoorsy feel that made us start looking for houses we could afford. In the end it was a little too expensive, a little too wintry and a little too large a town for us to seriously consider stopping and staying there.

Breakfast in Gallup at Earl’s Family Restaurant was a whole lot better than the fare we had in Amarillo. Lunch was a bagel in Flagstaff and dinner was a treat in Boulder City at the Little City Grille.

On The Oregon Trail – Day #6

Amarillo, TX to Gallup, NM. Pretty much all Interstate travel today, but we did travel a few sections of Old Rte. 66. One 9-mile stretch of very primitive roadway between exits when we got off to get gas and really didn’t like the looks of the station and its antiquated pumps. And another nice little section through the town of Grants, NM just to get this photo.

Because we are not really doing much walking during the travel days we decided to walk 3/4 of mile to get breakfast this morning. It was full dark still both there and back as we walked along the shoulder (no sidewalks) along Business 40 to a place called Hud’s. This was not a real good idea on two counts. First the food was sub par and second we almost got run over by a car turning into a parking lot.

On The Oregon Trail – Day #5

Paris, TX to Amarillo, TX. Pretty much traffic and Interstate free day. It took us a while to get out of Paris, but then it was US-82 to US-287 to about 30 miles of I-40. Amazing how fast you can travel 400 miles when you get to go 80 MPH. We had time to do a little Roadside America sight-seeing: Lady Bug VWs in St. Jo, World’s Smallest Skyscraper in Wichita Falls and the Slug Bug Ranch in Conway. A Holiday Inn Express breakfast in Paris where the highlight was the cinnamon bun, and that wasn’t very good. Lunch was terrific at Gidgets Sandwich Shack in Wichita Falls near the skyscraper. We finished the day with a “gourmet” dinner at the Food Court at the Westgate Mall.

Somewhere just before rolling in to the Slug Bug Ranch the Mini rolled past 36,000 miles.

On The Oregon Trail – Day #4

Hammond, LA to Paris, TX. We started on I-12 heading west, but before we even got to Baton Rouge traffic came to a stand still. We crept along for a couple miles until the next exit and got on some surface streets and it went pretty quickly. We dodged around the east and north of town on US-190 until we got to I-49 North. Did I mention Interstates suck? How about the Louisiana’s suck worse than most? The surfaces were awful, but we didn’t really hit any more traffic on I-49 even through Alexandria or Shreveport.

Once we got on the Texas back roads it was pretty much smooth sailing until we hit our overnight spot. And fast sailing too. Two-lane state highways you can go 70 MPH and the four-lane roads are 75 MPH which is 15-20 miles an hour faster than any state we’ve driven through so far.

Dinner was at Burgerland which was, truth be known, the only reason we routed our trip west this particular way. This was our third time dining here and for the first time, we came away mildly disappointed. We both thought the burger left something to be desired. Don’t get me wrong it was still miles above a Whopper or a 1/4 Pounder, but, we really couldn’t put our finger on it, it just fell short of previous experiences. The fries were still top notch and a small order feeds a family of four.

On The Oregon Trail – Day #3

We circled the wagons in Hammond. This was a planned 2-day stay to visit with friends from our New Orleans past. As it turned out, Donna did the visiting thing and I did the lay in bed in the hotel thing. I have been batting a cold/flu since last Monday and with the whirlwind last week in Aiken I never had a real chunk of time to rest and recover. Hopefully this day did the job because the next 6 days we are covering 2400 miles to get to Klamath Falls.

On The Oregon Trail – Day #2

Started in one state (Alabama), crossed a whole second state (Mississippi) and ended in the third state (Louisiana.) Today’s drive was entirely Interstate free, we did cross over or under a couple though. Through out Alabama and Mississippi the state and county roads were mostly nicely maintained and smooth. As soon as we got to Louisiana we were greeted by the thud, thud, thud, of roads made from concrete segments. This annoying, constant, repetitive bumping is especially prevalent here because the soft underground allows the 100′ x 12′ segments to slowly over time shift up and down in comparison to it’s neighbors. So while Interstates in general suck, those in the Pelican State suck more.