travel stories and silliness

We have travelled through 3 states today: half of New Mexico, Texas and now travelling through Oklahoma. The rain started heavy about a couple of hours ago, fortunately the wind isn’t too bad. We are heading for Oklahoma City where we will spend the night.

I was hoping to connect with my friend Don in Albuquerque today but between him having a dentist appointment in the morning and us wanting to get a good head start of travelling across the country… it just didn’t work out. Needless to say it was a disappointment.

So today has been a travelling day, drive, gas up, eat and repeat all day. Oh and go to the bathroom of course!! J I have grown fond of U.S. rest stops since they are clean and just off the highway which makes for a quick stop. This is another area where Bob and I are so suited for each other: when we travel we just want to get there!! (unless we have planned on making the stop .. )

So what do we do while travelling all day you ask? Bob is keeping track of all of moving expenses (gas, accommodation and food) so each day he inputs that on the computer while I drive. He also watched a movie today .. Oceans 11. While I drive I sing non stop (Bob wore headphones while watching his movie) and I sang my heart out!! How I love to sing! I also take corny self portraits using the timer or take photos while driving. Bob is getting used to me doing all this. I have so many shots while driving!!! I am also going through all 7000 of my photos (on a memory stick of course) and deleting the ones that aren't that great. It is a wonderful exercise and brings back tons of memories. Today I teared up seeing a head on shot of my fish Spot. (who died not long ago) When Bob looked over and I had tears in my eyes he said, It's a fish! I said, Are you kidding? Spot was the only pet I had in Vernon and he was such a nice fish. Wipe wipe wipe....

The other thing we do to amuse ourselves is to look at signs. Here are a few:

“Do not pick up hitchhikers.
Prison facilities”

Alrighty then… that is good to know. But we don’t have room for anyone even if we wanted to. The car is loaded to the gills (not that it has any gills but you know what I mean!)

There are so many tourist places that put TONS of signs along the road like giant moccasins, Indians blankets, Cherokee head dresses, cacti, beef jerky etc but my most favorite sign was this:

ROAD KILL APPAREL. I almost died laughing. Road kill apparel??? It was almost worth stopping the car to find out what it is!! We didn’t stop at Cline’s Corner for Road Kill Apparel but I must admit the next time we stopped for gas at Stuckley’s I casually asked the lady at the til what it was.

Here is that conversation:

Excuse me Mam, can you tell me what road kill apparel is? I saw it on a sign back a ways.

Road kill apparel?? I dunno. Just wait though. Hey Al!! Al! You know what road kill apparel is?? (we will call it rka for short)

Rka?? I dunno. I heard of road kill but I shore don’t know what rka is!!

The lady got this brilliant look on her face and said,

Hey maybe it’s those coon hats!!

I laughed right out loud and said, You may be right.. yup could be those coon hats for sure. Yeah maybe so!

Here’s another sign that amused me:

The Big Texan Restaurant
FREE 72 OZ. STEAK!!

I thought, oh my now that is an awful LOT of meat. But you know what they say everything is bigger in Texas. Can you imagine eating that much steak!!??! That is what I call a serious carnivore

Bob saw a place called Budville.

Here is his commentary on that sign:

“Ya so people in Budville say: yeah, that’s my brother Bud, and my other brother Bud. We live in Budville. We’re all BUDS! We don’t got no Navajo blankets in Budville so we are cold buds but in Budville we keep each other warm because we are BUDS!!"

You may not see the humour in any of this but imagine only getting about 6 hours sleep, being stir crazy, somewhat bored, a little oxygen deprived and I bet you’d have laughed too. We laugh a lot.

I hesitate to share this next story because … well… it shows how gullible I really am. For those of you who know me well this won’t come as a surprise but for the rest of you who think I am a rather clever, savvy woman .. I hate to burst your bubble. Okay here is a little conversation we had this morning while travelling through New Mexico (which I loved by the way!)

Debi – What’s all that black stuff on the side of the road?

Bob - It’s just broken up asphalt from the old highway.

Debi - Really?

Bob - Yeah they just created rock formations out of it so the tourists will take pictures of it.

Debi – I don’t know honey, that is a lot of TAR!

At this point Bob burst out saying, “Honey you crack me up! Yup that’s a lot of tar!! A lot of tar alright!”

(it really was black rock formations which I took a picture of. I will upload it tomorrow since my batteries are dead tonight)

As much as that shows how gullible I am it also shows that Bob is a rascal who likes to pull my leg and then laugh wholeheartedly at me. Truth be told though I laughed for a good long time afterwards. Miles later I would chuckle to myself… I don’t know honey, that is a lot of TAR!

Just an update: we ended up driving to Van Buren, Arkansas. That is 4 states we travelled through. When we get into ‘travel mode’ nothing can stop us!! The weather changed around 8:30, and everything cleared up around us so we decided to just keep driving. I went in a bought a starbuck energy drink with ginseng and guava. As I set out to drive I said to Bob, Okay honey you might as well settle in because when this drink kicks in I will be good to go for quite awhile in the driving department! Then I laughed and said, I am sure not a typical woman am I? He smiled and said, Oh honey I knew that from the moment I met you!

We drove almost 16 hours today!! Reminds me of the days we used to drive straight through from Nova Scotia to Ontario.

Anyways we are known for ‘games in the car’ and I made up a new one. I will share it with you because it is really a great one. Okay here is how it goes: you go through the alphabet back and forth using each letter to give the other person a memory that they need to share. Here are a few of our words: apple pie, police, igloo, winter memories etc. It is interesting the stories that come out of it. It is too late to write any memories we had though.

Time for sleep now.

Good night.

Oh just one more thing. I can’t upload pictures because my batteries on the camera died but I just want to tell you about a photo I took. We stopped at a little gas station and I saw this sign (yes another sign!) called “Pig out Palace” I couldn’t believe it so I walked over and took a shot of it, then saw some pigs made out of tin barrels and took a picture of them too. As we were leaving this large (very large) man sauntered over. I thought he was going to say something about the kayaks one car but he said, Um Mam I need to ask why you took a picture of my truck!! I told him I didn’t take a picture of his truck but I took one of the sign. Then he said, Oh I see, I thought you were taking a picture of my truck, and then I saw you took another one and I thought you were taking one of the stop sign. I thought you were trying to prove I had done something wrong.” It took a lot for me to keep a straight face (you need to realize that when I get tired I get really really silly) but I was good and managed to assure the man that I wasn’t trying in any way to incriminate him (at which point he looked at me strangely) so I said.. sir.. I don’t find anything guilty with you. Fear not

Only in Arkansas.

Goodnight for real.

xo