Almost There!

We left Marion, Arkansas (just outside of Memphis, TN) Sunday morning and just drove all day. Arkansas reminds me a lot of the foothills of NC. We drove through the Ozark Mountains, which are pretty much just hills. It looks a lot like Wilkes County. Then we crossed into Oklahoma. I always think of Oklahoma as wide-open prairies, but the first half of it is very similar to NC. Once you get past Oklahoma City, it looks a lot more like what you imagine it would. We stayed Sunday night in Canute, OK, which is about as exciting as it sounds. Oklahoma had flash floods Sunday night, but we were fortunate to miss pretty much all that rain.

Monday morning we left Oklahoma and headed west though the panhandle of Texas. It looked just as I imagined it would. Wide-open prairies as far as the eye can see.

The road kill is a lot different in Oklahoma and Texas. Instead of the standard possum that we have in NC, they have armadillos. I think they are just as slow as the possums since we saw a lot of them. We also saw a couple of coyotes on the side of the road, too.

We didn’t stay in Texas long as we passed into New Mexico around lunchtime. For me, this really feels like our trip has officially started. The landscape in New Mexico is so different form we have at home, that it feels like we’re in a different world. I remember feeling this way when we got into Wyoming last year. All the red rock formations and mesas are amazing. I love just traveling and waiting to see what’s going to be around the next corner. It makes the time go by pretty quickly. I don’t think I could drive 10 hours a day back home and be as content about it.

We arrived at our destination for the night, Gallup, NM. Our KOA campground is located on Historic Route 66 so we can say that we cruised down Route 66 now!

We went to the downtown are of Gallup to watch Native American dancing that the city sponsors every night during the summer. The dancers were from the Zuni tribe. They have a reservation in the southern part of New Mexico. Most of New Mexico is Navajo area, though. The dancers were very cool and did several dances, including an eagle dance, a turkey dance and a white buffalo dance. The ladies did a dance while balancing pots on their heads, which was pretty impressive.

One of the Zuni played the flute and he was very impressive. He would play a flute then sing a bit while pulled out another flute. He ended up playing like 5 different flutes that he kept pulling out of different places. He was like a Native American Flute Ninja. It was crazy!

We had dinner at a little café after the dances where I had a birthday éclair. Yummm!

We did some grocery shopping and laundry to end up the evening since we are starting the tent camping phase of our trip tomorrow. That’s about it for today. It was a really good birthday.

Tomorrow we’re going to the Grand Canyon, so I don’t know when I’ll be able post again. Good night from Gallup, NM!