Road Trip

On The Road To Loiusiana, Day Two

Now out of the panhandle of Texas, there were no Quanah Parker Arrows to stumble on. And actually we spent a whole lot of time on 2-lane Texas state routes. When we blew through San Angelo, 90 miles and an hour and a half from the start, we didn’t expect to have to wait another 2 3/4 hours before we got to the next spot for a snack and nature break. There was no emergency, but both of us were happy to find a place to relieve ourselves indoors.

Also, Sally has this internal worry that some car-related failure would leave us stranded in literally the middle of nowhere and would prefer to be on mostly major roads. I, of course, never worry about it, and maybe I should, if at least for her sake. The result of this is instead of my ideal 3-day, no-interstate drive, I think next time I’m going to bite the bullet and do this Santa Fe-Hammond-Santa Fe adventure in two days of mostly Interstate travel.

Tonight’s stop is the town of Crockett, TX, which is named for Davy Crockett because he camped here on his way to the massacre at the Alamo, where he perished. This is totally different from the town of Bowie, home of the world’s largest Bowie knife, which is named for another Alamo casualty, in that Jim Bowie never got anywhere near that town.

On The Road To Loiusiana, Day One

In my never-ending quest to find a different path between Santa Fe, NM, and Hammond, LA, that includes minimal Interstate travel, this one is number five. It is actually the route that was our return on the Thanksgiving trip but was abandoned for weather reasons and includes Big Spring and Crockett in Texas.

While driving thru the town of Plains, I spotted a Quanah Parker
Arrow, so I pulled into the Yokum County Building’s parking lot and took a picture. Longtime readers might remember that I have taken photos of these before. I went back through my photos and found 6 more, five of which came from Donna and my Oregon to Mississippi and back trip in 2023. The last one came from our 2018 South Carolina to Tahoe and back, but I didn’t note that one’s town. There are approximately 80 of the arrows, all in Texas, but as far as I can tell there is no list of the cities they are in. There is a list of all 51 counties that have one or more on the website, Quanah Parker Trail, but it hasn’t been updated since 2011 so your mileage may vary.

Fairview, OR

I’m back home after five weeks away, but I can’t get too comfortable, as I’ll be here for five weeks before flying off for four weeks. This leg of the drive home was probably the worst driving of the whole trip. It was 370-ish miles of I-84, and the last half of that was in a steady, heavy rain. Think more 18-wheelers than you can shake a stick at, and all of them creating additional spray behind and on all sides, which enhances the lack of visibility. Heaven forbid you come up behind one passing the other…

On the first third of the journey, I was hopping off and on the interstate, grabbing the half dozen post offices that were left that are right off I-84. Weirdly, the number in the file name of the post offices has reached 312, but Google Maps thinks I have 313 in the List labeled “Found Post Offices.” I thought I had synced those numbers a while back. Maybe it’s a good time to audit it again.

Monticello, UT

When I left Santa Fe this morning, the view to the west was outstanding. The sun was up, but not over the mountains to the east, so that the setting full moon was brightly illuminated as it descended towards a mountain that was covered with the recent snow. I thought I should pull off of US-285 and take a picture, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to capture its beauty, so I just looked at it every time I could and imprinted it in my brain.

Pork Taquitos at Amigo Cafe

The plan was to follow the semi-shortest way to get here, about 330 miles, but as with most of my driving plans, it went astray. Instead of turning north onto US-191 in Shiprock, NM, I stayed on US-64 West. Wondering where I might get lunch, I couldn’t stomach any of the fast food places in and around Farmington/Shiprock, so I thought of the restaurant that Sally, I, and her friend Holly ate at in Kayenta three weeks ago. It was a place called Amigo Cafe, and I could still taste the pork taquitos I had. Checking the map and the timing, I opted to go on a 110-mile detour. Worth every mile and minute. A place that I can highly recommend eating at if you find yourself in that area.

This route also took me by Monument Valley. I had seen very little traffic on the road past the entrance to it, so I thought that there wouldn’t be anyone standing in the road at Forrest Gump Point. Wrong, there were at least ten cars pulled over and about forty people pretending to be turkey vultures trying to get to some tasty roadkill. Singles, duos, and whole groups would run out into the road to get the selfie on the yellow line, only to have to hop back real quick to the sides when cars came through.

Santa Fe, NM

World’s Largest Mule Shoe?


Leg 3 on the return trip to Santa Fe.

I got to check off a Roadside America thing today that I missed back in May of this year, the World’s Largest Mule Shoe. I’m not so sure it is even a mule shoe; it is more of a horizontal McDonald’s logo made of cement with mule shoes imbedded in it. The Roadside America write-up’s location led straight to a mule statue, not the big shoe, which is located at the town’s Heritage Center. The center looked like a very interesting place to visit, but because it’s a short hop (comparatively) from Lubbock to Santa Fe, we were there before they opened.

Quanah Parker Arrow, Muleshoe

As a bonus, there was a Quanah Parker Arrow there. Donna and I had taken pictures of a half dozen or so of them on our travels through Texas, but not this particular one.

Lubbock, TX

Sunset Geese


Leg 2 on the return to Santa Fe.

I had to scrape the thick frost off the windshield with my credit card to get going. Today was a shorter day than yesterday, and we got to Lubbock a little after 1:00 PM, which was way too early to check in, but that was OK, as we had 3 things to do first. 1) HTeaO 2) Eat lunch and 3) Clean out our 3rd H-E-B of the house brand Cinnamon Spice Oatmeal.

At stop #1 Sally asked for a restaurant recommendation from the girl behind the counter. Her response was Italian Garden. It was smack in the middle of downtown, and the food was fantastic and reasonably priced.

After we got all checked in, we wanted to take a walk to stretch our legs and found McAlister Park not too far from the hotel. It is a large park with a variety of sports fields, and the east side has a big lake with dirt paths around it. That lake is a stop along the migratory path of the Canadian goose.

Paris, TX

Christmas in Paris … Texas

Leg 1 on the return to Santa Fe.

If I ever had the windshield wipers off at all on today’s drive, it was for only a few seconds. The weather was just miserable. And whenever we got out of the vehicle, there was a stiff breeze making the 37° temps seem a lot colder.

For the first time in quite a while I didn’t make a stop at the Eiffel Tower, and there were two reasons for it. 1) The weather is miserably cold and wet, and 2) there was no reason to, as I already took a picture last year of Sally’s Tucson in front of it to go along with past photos of two different Mini Coopers and two different Miatas.

But, we did not miss going to Burgerland for dinner.

Burgerland