Hello from the Road!

Well, it’s day 5 on the road and we haven’t murdered each other yet so this seems to be working. We’ve spent a lot of time driving in the past few days and we’re definitely ready for a break. Last night we pulled into Tucumcari, New Mexico and we’re now having a lazy morning recharging and enjoying the desert sunrise (and wifi!) The plan today is to head to Sante Fe (only about 2 hours), have some good Mexican food for lunch and see some sights there. Then we’ll head up to Taos (2 hrs) and set up camp for 3 days. It will be good not to have a full day of driving for a change and I think we’ll all feel like the trip is really starting then – we’re expecting to do some fun hiking, take the bikes off the roof rack for a change, and set up a full camp site (ie campfire, cocktails, hammocks, etc).

We’ve crossed 5 states in as many days now and it’s been fun and I think actually easier than we expected. It’s hard to appreciate how very big this country is until you start driving across it. One thing we easterners take for granted is that there is almost always gas, food and restrooms along the highway every 5-6 miles or so. One of our trip memories is definitely going to be driving through Oklahoma watching the gas gauge dip lower and lower and the available range reading go to zero as we tried to get to the next exit with gas (especially after I missed the prior exit while driving like a zombie). The Seinfeld episode where Kramer takes his test drive to empty is funny now but we were all slightly panicked, envisioning a second day of car issues (after we had spent the morning at the Toyota dealership in OKC having a small engine repair taken care of).

But all is well now and we’re on the road again as Willie would say. We’ll try to keep the updates coming whenever we have good wifi and some time to catch up!