I've never been a beach person - nor much of a water person for that matter - there are only lakes and rivers in the land-locked Prairies scoured out of the ground by the glacial action of the last ice age and the meltwaters of the Rocky Mountains .
But, I think I could be... Place name links like Carolina Beach, NC go to Wikipedia. Place name links like Carolina Beach use the local tourism or government website.
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| 2012.12.18 |
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma |
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Today is a pass-through day - there isn't much of note to see here. We stayed in a mostly-empty convention-oriented hotel on the edge of town with a free breakfast that consisted of... not much beyond waffles and cereal and fruit. Don't know why they even bother. Morning dawned sunny with totally clear blue skies, first I've seen in some time. 8 hours to Albuquerque, NM under these skies mostly, so we aren't lingering here. Maybe a stop in Amarillo, TX, but otherwise a high-speed top-down day before the weather chills out. We're on Route 66 now.
this is Country Music country | |
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flat and windy means windpower | |
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Flat, | |
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flat, | |
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flat! | |
Driving is real easy for most of this leg - the terrain is flat and as we pass through the Texas Panhandle the speed limit increases to 75mph. Not much to see here, we make good time. But around Amarillo, TX , after umpteen-thousand kilometers driving above or well-above the speed limit the long arm of the law catches up to me and I get a ticket: 87mph (140kph) in a 75mph (120kph) zone. 2mph less and I probably would have been unnoticed or even left with a warning, but the law's the law and given that I've done 90mph in zones with much-lower speed limits I've fared real well.
Just outside Amarillo we stopped for lunch in what looked to be just a country eatery but which was famous for its owner being somewhat famous in the food world and its recipes featured on the cover of Bon Appetit magazine. Ribs were delicious!
Saw snow for the first time since my first day out way back in October: some slush in the parking of a truck stop in the mountains on the way in to Albuquerque. Brrrr... |
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| 2012.12.19 |
Albuquerque, New Mexico |
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Albuquerque is a rising tourism and arts city, though with some bad weather coming and very-cool temperatures and strong winds we limited ourselves to looking around Old Town Albuquerque. While there, I wanted to visit the American International Rattlesnake Museum and get a rattlesnake mug like this one that Craig Ferguson has on his show .
| Old Albuquerque is full of small shops and restaurants that would be a good afternoon of wandering about except it was very chilly. |
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| After lunch while we waited for the Rattlesnake Museum to open I got my mug. They're a popular item since the owner mentioned Ferguson as soon as he saw me looking at their display mug. Suitably shopped, we set off for our day's drive.
We have an itinerary change though. There's a winter storm blowing through our route to Flagstaff, with packed snow and high winds. So, we're heading south and around the storm, to Tucson, AZ via Las Cruces, NM .
| Even though we avoided snow, the wind for the first couple hours was gusting at or above 50mph (70kph) from the southwest, a head/sidewind that was probably the toughest driving of my whole time down south. Again more barren terrain with little elevation that made driving otherwise pretty much recreational. |
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| Out in the middle of nowhere we started seeing distance markers for somewhere called 'Truth or Consequences' so naturally we had to investigate, given the lack of anything else along the way. Truth or Consequences, NM is a hot-springs spa town that renamed itself after a 1950 TV game show that promised it would air from the first town to change its name. Other than the novelty of the place's name, a pit-stop after some arm-tiring driving, and cheap gas to make up for fighting a headwind, there wasn't really much to see. But we can say we were there. |
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The rest of the drive was uneventful, as the winds died down and despite numerous roadside signs warning of possible dust-storm conditions visibility was excellent, though hazy off in the distance.
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| 2012.12.20 |
Tucson, Arizona |
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Well apparently there's little to see here apart from galleries and restaurants and bars, so we're going to enjoy a day of top-down driving into Palm Springs and get there near sunset and grab some cocktails for the End Of The World. Not a bad place to see it unfold I suppose. Better than cold snowy Flagstaff!
Airplane storage outside Tucson | |
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Saguaro cacti on the hills | |
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a little more | |
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mountainous terrain | |
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approaching California | |
| Stopping in Quartzsite, AZ for gas, we found Canadians over-wintering. Or at least Candaian flags, first I've seen in months. |
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| Arriving in Palm Springs, we checked into one of the funkiest rooms we've stayed in. |
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| Our hotel was 2 blocks from main street, which closed off every Thursday evening for a street fair with locally-grown produce, crafts, food vendors, and demostrations. |
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Memphis, Tennessee |
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Palm Springs, California |
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