Tag-Archive for ◊ Texas ◊

05 Nov 2008 Day 7 Done! Texas to Oklahoma to Arkansas
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Today was another race east, we clocked 585 miles.

3007486832 a198b58bbb m Day 7 Done! Texas to Oklahoma to Arkansas The morning got off to a great start after a good night of sleep and a yummy complimentary breakfast which included waffles shaped like the state of Texas!! They do everything bigger and better in Texas including “the biggest cross in the western hemisphere”!

The hotel lobby had a sign in it inviting anyone to take this challenge: get chauffeured in a limo to a steakhouse and eat a 72oz steak for free if you could finish it in an hour!!3007495674 0c7e78eb2a m Day 7 Done! Texas to Oklahoma to Arkansas
The weather was bright and sunny as we pulled away from Amarillo and headed east. We have noticed that gas is cheaper (in some cases $1.20/gal less), there is an abundance of country and gospel music on the radio, there are 3 pickup trucks to every car and there are bbq restaurants and waffle houses all along the side of the freeway. Amarillo left us with a great impression of Texas and the hospitality they are known for in this part of the country.

In between the gospel and country stations we found plenty of talk radio full of buzz about the election last night. People were calling in from all over the country with plenty of opinions and lots of praise for Barack Obama and his victory. We stayed up last night longer than we had intended watching the coverage on the news and the making of history. We both wish the best to this country that has hosted us and treated us well for the past two years. Now that we are on the road we can truly appreciate how vast and beautiful it really is here and that at the end of the day we are not so very different.

3007476110 1a68702184 m Day 7 Done! Texas to Oklahoma to Arkansas We crossed into Oklahoma around noon and noticed an immediate and drastic difference in the landscape. Western Oklahoma is GREEN! Farms and farms and more farms…oh…and some cattle and  hay bales too. We drove past Oklahoma City (surprisingly big city) and then noticed again that the landscape changed into hardwood trees turning to beautiful fall colours.

At this point I took the wheel to give Jamie a break. Somewhere abcop Day 7 Done! Texas to Oklahoma to Arkansasout 2/3 of the way across Oklahoma I was clipping along to a very upbeat country song when I came over the top of a hill, saw a police cruiser lying in wait and I was busted!! 80 in a 70 zone. The cruiser pulled up behind me with his lights flashing and so I pulled over. Up to the window came officer ” hunk” who thankfully gave me a warning after checking out my license and insurance. I have been driving for 12 years and that was the first time I have been stopped!

3007475998 8a11d767c3 m Day 7 Done! Texas to Oklahoma to Arkansas Arkansas looks pretty and like a farming state. Much of the landscape was not visible to us on the way as it gets dark so early now. We’ll get a better idea tomorrow when we leave and start heading into the eastern part of the state. Our route tomorrow will take us across another state line and into Tennessee with a likely stop in Memphis before stopping for the night in Nashville.

More news and pictures tomorrow, keep visiting and LEAVE SOME COMMENTS (please).

3006836391 f5191aa533 Day 7 Done! Texas to Oklahoma to Arkansas

Western Oklahoma

3006836439 99f9c21d05 Day 7 Done! Texas to Oklahoma to Arkansas

Eastern Oklahoma

05 Nov 2008 Day 7 Plan: Texas to Oklahoma to Arkansas
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Today should be another steady day of driving. We plan to make another significant jump from Texas through Oklahoma and then into Arkansas. We hope to make it to Little Rock, the home of Bill Clinton, and stop for the night. Perhaps we’ll get to see some Clinton memorabilia before departing on Thursday!

Here is our planned route:

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04 Nov 2008 Made it to Texas: 657 miles today
Author:  |  Category: USA to Canada Roadtrip 2008  | Tags: , , , , , , ,  | Leave a Comment

3004113965 01e34f94a8 m Made it to Texas: 657 miles today We are safe and sound in Amarillo, Texas. It was a long day of driving, just shy of 660 miles and 11 hours of travel (including stops) in total. We left Williams, Arizona this morning around 7:30am, drove into and through New Mexico and into Texas just after sunset. We both split up the driving almost 50/50 so it was much easier on both of us. There weren’t many stops today as our main goal was to put a significant distance behind us after a few days of sightseeing and more casual driving. We did stop in Albuquerque, New Mexico which was interesting – I’ve always heard of Albuquerque as the butt of “middle of nowhere” jokes but the city was nothing like I expected. It was actually a very large, major and modern center – out in the middle of nowhere lol! Truthfully we’re realizing you need at least 3-4 weeks to do this drive properly, there are so many places we’d like to stop and explore unfortunately however we don’t have the luxury of time to keep stopping everywhere along the way. Perhaps someday!

It was an interesting day to be in the US, as it was election day. Even though we’ve mostly been on the highway, we did manage to see a few interesting aspects of the election both over the past few days as well as today. As we stopped in rural Utah for lunch a few days ago we ran into a full group of McCain/Palin party organizers in a local Subway restaurant. We got more than a few ‘funny looks’ from those folks when they saw our California license plates on the car (California of course by far being Democrats). Today we saw something both cute and inspiring: a group of four school-age boys, no more than 13 years old standing on a street corner near the freeway exit in Albuquerque with a handmade sign reading “HONK for Obama – NOT for McCain!”. They were there by themselves, no parents around, jumping up and down and very excited about the support they were getting from the motorists passing by. Personally I don’t even remember knowing what an election was at that age, let alone publicly supporting one candidate or another. One other nice thing today – Starbucks was giving away free coffee on election day, we didn’t even know it until we stopped in for a caffeine break mid-afternoon.

3003972335 fb196c2d89 m Made it to Texas: 657 miles today

Our Votes: The Best We Could Do!

We did the best we could to support our choice for President. Obviously as Canadian citizens we couldn’t vote in American Election, but 7-Eleven was running a promotion whereby you could buy coffee in cups specially made for your choice of presidential candidate. Each purchase counted as a ‘vote’ and the results were tracked at www.7-election.com. I’m certain it didn’t help the cause but I’m glad to see that America went that way anyway. icon smile Made it to Texas: 657 miles today

If you haven’t already noticed, we’re trying to get photos of a “Welcome to” sign for every state line that we cross. We aren’t sure we’ll get every one, we’ve crossed state lines in the past in the US where there were no signs (such as crossing from California to Nevada and back around Lake Tahoe), but we’ll do our best. The Texas sign is above, here are the two others we passed today:
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The temperature has really started to change as we travel away from the West Coast. Despite being so far south, it was COLD – just a little above freezing temperatures – when we left Arizona this morning. It probably doesn’t help that we are almost 5000 ft feet up as we travel across this area. This afternoon it did warm up to very comfortable temperatures – and it is warmer this evening in Texas. Thankfully we have still not lost the continual sunshine that we are so used to from California! icon smile Made it to Texas: 657 miles today Also BTW, we passed through another timezone today; we are now on Central Time – 2 hours ahead of California and 2.5 hours behind Newfoundland.