Wednesday, September 24, 2014

Texas Is On The Horizon!!

I was up late ... airplanes and my neighbor's muscle pickup ... and up early, airplanes and puppies, making for a short night!!  It's going to be a long 5 hour drive to Amarillo from Oklahoma City, so I stocked my dash with pepsi and M&M's.  Hey, whatever works, right??  Typical of big cities, there were many roads going every which direction with a corresponding number of confusing signs to try and follow.
In Oklahoma City however, they have these bigs signs painted on the roadway!!  YAY for Oklahoma!!  These are just so helpful to make sure you get in the right lane ... and they are placed way in advance of the turnoff.  I wish EVERY state did this!!!  It would be much easier to navigate ... especially for a single driver!!
Not much to see in Oklahoma ... or Okla as the signs say.  I guess it just costs too much to make a sign big enough for the name.  A couple of minutes out, we stopped for fuel ($3.43) at a car-only Loves and were able to squeeze through.  Diesel jumps up pretty high as you cross the border into Texas.
Which we did ... cross the border into Texas.  Sorry about all the bugs on the windshield!!
Right away you could tell this was cattle country!!
The speed limit here is 75 ... and trucks take advantage.  While we cruised along at 60 mph, this Turner-Scott racing team truck passed us like we were standing still.  This is one of their many racing cars ... #31 is driven by any of three guys, depending on what race it is!!
The closer to Amarillo we got, the more farming we saw.  It looked like milo or sorghum, planted in circles for irrigation.
We've seen some major big loads in our travels, but I guess this is the biggest.  There were five of these parked alongside the road.  You can tell how heavy it is by the number of tires on the ground.  We used to do heavy haul, but nothing that compares to this.  The trailer sections are specially made to grab onto the tower section with a hydraulic setup.  Pretty cool ... I've never seen this before.  They don't run much up off the ground either ... no going over driveways or train tracks with this baby!!
As you probably guessed, this is what the above section becomes, once put together.  You can see the crane in the far distance putting a windmill up.  We also seen the blades being hauled on trucks. They don't look that big when you see them in the distance, but they are massive!!!
We arrived in Amarillo and are staying at an RV park just outside town.  I don't know the name ... I only saw a sign that said "Camper".  We paid $25 for two nights (Passport America) and never saw any owners or employees.  As we drove to the back to pick our sites, I caught a glimpse of the swimming pool.  Yup ... that's it filled with tulles!  I remembered to check the power first this time with my handy dandy yellow plug, to find an open ground.  Hmmm that's not good.  I walked a couple doors down to find one that seemed to work.  It has a 50 amp plug, a 30 amp plug and a 30 amp fuse, on a pole that you have to hold tight to so it doesn't fall over.  It's good power though ... ran the AC just great for the right price!!
Since we were in rather early, we took both our Jeeps to Jiffy Lube for an oil change.  I plan on double checking mine ... it took 5 minutes to do versus 20 minutes for Tom's.  Barbara found a Cracker Barrel just down the block, so that was our dinner stop.  Catfish dinner and a BLT ... YUM YUM!!!  Today is a do-nothing day ... so I plan on getting some shopping in!!  It's my last chance to get cowboy gear in Texas!!!  By Thursday, we'll be back in Tucumcari again!!

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