This was a rough day – very long, but surprisingly beautiful drive into Tucumcari. Lots of mesas and great rocky landscape – not the desolate environment we had anticipated. Lots to look at! Thankfully on this leg of our trip, we were already at a high altitude of almost 6000′, so when crossing the Continental Divide at 7275′ in New Mexico, it was a pretty gradual climb. In this region, we noted miles and miles of lava beds . This is part of the El Malpais Conservation Area (Malpais is Spanish for badlands due to extremely barren and dramatic volcanic fields) and is the result of eruptions from Bandera Crater, El Canderon and several other cinder cones. The most recent volcanic activity was about 800 years ago. Some of the oldest Douglas Fir trees on earth can be found in this area. It’s a stunning and unexpected sight as you drive along I-40.
We arrived in Tucumcari at the KOA, and were SO excited to see campsites with grassy area! I literally ripped off my flip flops to run my toes through the grass …… until ….. yes, this darling but very large tarantula was lodged next to our RV and I almost stepped on him. He was probably as surprised as I was! On go my shoes! As it turned out, it is tarantula mating season and there were lots of these arachnids throughout the park, much to the surprise of many of our fellow campers! Bob and I aren’t afraid of them – it was just a big startle at first, but that night we secured our camper well just in case one might want to snuggle in with us!
Next day we are off to Foss, OK for a quick one night stay on our way to Joy Lynn and Steve Williams. They are old high school friends of Bob’s from Tullahoma, TN, and I was very excited to get to meet them after hearing so many great and fun stories about them over the years!
Between Gallup and Albuquerque, we noted trains with literally hundreds of coal cars and refineries. The pass out of Albuquerque was over 7000′ and we found ourselves on this big climb sharing the road with giant trucks hauling windmill blades, like it wasn’t stressful enough! West of Amarillo you could see thousands of windmills for miles and miles and as far as the eye could see! This was a very boring part of the trip, so we eased the boredom of the TX panhandle listening to Zach Brown radio and singing along. Today we went over the 10,000 mile threshhold on this journey.
The trip to Foss was uneventful but we did see some interesting landmarks on the way. The cross you see below is the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ Ministries in Groom, TX on I-40. This was originally intended to be large spiritual billboard, and then transformed into this 19 story, 2 million pound steel cross. it was erected in 1995.
The KOA there was pretty nice, with again, nice grassy sites, a great dog park and a lounge and restaurant on site. Also, the biggest KOA sign I have ever seen – they didn’t want to be missed on I-40 for sure!
On our way to the Williams’ lake house in Wagoner, about a 30-40 minute southeast of Tulsa!