Thursday 7 September 2006
It’s a beautiful fine day today. Rather than cook our own breakfast we walked up the old Route 66 to a lovely little restaurant called “Kix on Route 66”. We met a really friendly 18 year old waitress there, named Nubia who proudly told us that her parents were from Mexico. We noticed that in the town just about everyone working was from Mexico, or somewhere south!
On the front of the menu in the diner “Kix on Route 66” there was a statement that said, “A tastier way to get your Kix on 66”. The breakfast was typically American – i.e. light weight. You could have Route 66 Pankix – a stack of three of the best pancakes you’ve ever had for only $3.79. If you wanted a lighter breakfast you could have sirloin steak and eggs – “Hand cut tender sirloin steak with two farm fresh eggs, taters (obviously potatoes) and toast or a biscuit” for $8.99. Other food included Huebos Rancheros – corn tortillas topped with red chilli and two eggs, served with pinto beans and flour tortilla. That was only $5.79. Pip and I decided to have poached eggs on toast.
Of course you could have an ice cream sundae for $2.49. This is an old fashioned sundae made with two scoops of real ice cream and topped with your choice of chocolate, caramel, white chocolate or strawberries and whipped cream – i.e. this is the light fare.
We left the camp area at 8.42 am and headed back onto Interstate 40. At 9.24 am we crossed into the Texas Panhandle – WOW! Our eighth State! So far we have been to Alaska, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, and now Texas.
As we cruised along the highway at 60 mph on cruise control listening to satellite radio and sometimes the iPod with Slim Dusty, we noticed traditional Aussie things such as windmills and silos. Dick had phoned Bill at Earthroamer and requested that the spare inverter, which we had purchased be shipped down to Memphis and an Earthroamer engineer fly down to do a quick repair and replacement. After all, we are driving around the world and Pip needs to use her hairdryer!
We were heading across the magnificent flat plains of Texas. Yes, the Texans are proud but the country is not as good as it is around Dubbo – or possibly we are a little biased. Grain and corn were growing in the paddocks and there were cattle and huge silos.
Just before Groom, we came across a huge cross – in fact it’s the largest cross in the Western Hemisphere. Where else would you see this other than Texas?
Every now and then we saw huge flagpoles with the American flag flying. Dick had seen one of these enormous flags in 1983 when he finished his helicopter flight around world and copied the idea at the North Ryde warehouse.
Dick also reminded Pip that we were crossing the path of the Jetranger’s flight around the world. Dick had spent a night in Amarillo, just before the final flight to Fort Worth.
On the left of the road was a leaning water tower! Hopefully we will get to the Leaning Tower of Pisa and see it from the ground for the first time. The “leaning water tower of Texas” was a fun copy.
At McLean we left the Interstate and got onto Route 66 and found a fascinating museum that was totally dedicated to barbed wire. The proud volunteer behind the counter told us that this was the barbed wire headquarters of the whole of the United States.
We were 2,800 ft in altitude and we realised that towards the Mississippi everything would be downhill.
At 1.35 pm we were back on 40 East with 189 miles to go to Oklahoma City. We are now half way on our distance from New York to Denver.
We crossed into the State of Oklahoma and the country started to become greener. Once again, it is all wealthy farming and grazing land.
The speed limit here on the Interstate was 70 mph maximum and 40 mph minimum. We sat on 60 mph as the trucks passed us at 70 – 75 mph. In Texas they have peculiar speed limits – 70 mph during the day and 65 mph at night. Just like Australia, every State has its own rules.
As we passed Elk City we saw a wonderful sign that said “Susan Powell. Miss America 1981”. Well, this is nearly as famous as discovering where the highest printing press existed. Dick wanted to go into Elk City and meet Susan however Pip said that was 26 years ago and she may have aged a bit!
Beside the road there were now big oil wells and train lines. Dick was desperately watching for a train.
The colour of the earth now is very red, which you can see in the ploughed paddocks.
There are wind farms at different places and cattle numbers increasing as we headed towards Oklahoma City.
Obviously the carrying capacity is greater the further east you go. It’s interesting that one of the reasons the United States is so wealthy and can accommodate so many people – about 15 times more than Australia – is that their good cropping and farming lands go two-thirds of the way across their country, whereas in Australia it is more like one tenth of the way.
We stopped at Henrietta for a McDonald’s coffee and dare we say, a couple of packets of small fries. These fries are not made with Tasmanian potatoes but they were not bad – quite good for a “fix” when you’ve been driving a long way.
At this stage, there was virtually no traffic on the road. We asked the McDonald’s staff whether the time zone changed between where we were and Memphis. They said there was a one hour difference however we later found out that this was incorrect. Once again, never ask the locals.
A full moon rose in front of us. What a magnificent day! We stopped at 8.10 pm local time at Checotah / Lake Eufaula West at a KOA campground. This was the first KOA campground we had stopped at. It is a franchise of campgrounds in the United States and we found it to be quite fantastic because they are clean, have nicely cared for grounds and also always have a good laundry.
KOA stands for Kampgrounds Of America – of course Americans have never been able to spell the English language correctly – they obviously did not realise that campground starts with a “C” not a “K” (a joke).
A lovely couple came out, unlocked their office to collect the $29.95 from us. They said that they had been voted the second most friendliest car campground in America. We could see why. Even though the campground was close to the highway and therefore a bit noisy, it was immaculately presented.
There were lots of mosquitoes around so we kept the screens up and did a quick load of laundry. This is one of the reasons we occasionally call into a proper campground. We are also able to fill our water tanks and empty our sewerage.
Each night we turn on the computer to check the emails. Isn’t modern technology incredible? We are saying this because possibly in 50 years time our grandchildren will read this again and wonder why we kept mentioning using the cell phone and the internet. Just back in 1966, Dick traveled across the United States and to make a phone call home it had to go through the operator and it cost a small fortune. Sometimes it would take 20 minutes to get the call through. This of course was before cell phones and the internet had even been thought of, let alone invented, and even before international direct dialing – remember that – modern invention!
769kms today 9,593 kms Total
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