Saturday and the clock is ticking, so we are up before the sun and already on the road at 6:00 a.m. We don’t get far before we stop for gas at only $1.89 a gallon, fresh ice for the ice chest as we are traveling with food in the back seat in order to save time needing to eat at restaurants, and we got a coffee. Hey, wait a minute, didn’t I just say yesterday that we don’t drink gas station coffee? Sometimes beggars can’t be choosers, and knowing that on the roads we’re taking today, there’s not a chance of coming across anything better, we opt for something resembling coffee as we desperately need it after our brief five-and-a-half hours of sleep.

We’re more than 90 minutes further east in our journey when it occurs to us that the sections of Route 66 that are still out here may not always be so and that we should use this opportunity to check out the sights. This was part of the old town called Montoya in New Mexico.

Old Route 66 is being consumed by nature, and many of its remaining stretches don’t even look this well preserved. A few plants didn’t stop our exploration, but at some point, things got too narrow, dictating we turn around. A single bemused horse watches what must be some kind of routine as we tourists can go no further.

If you are traveling New Mexico Road 54, you’ll reach Nara Visa right before the Texas border, but Texas is not part of our travel plans, so here in this town that is mostly occupied by ghosts, we turn north onto the 402 along the eastern border of New Mexico.

Don’t be a douchebag and run over tortoises for your twisted blood sport; yeah, I’m talking to you pickup drivers who seem to aim for wildlife crossing America’s country roads. Instead, get out of your vehicle and help the creature across; it might help your ruined karma.

Further up the road from Amistad, where we had the tortoise encounter, we are stopping in Clayton, New Mexico, to fill up on gas, get another cup of coffee, and indulge in an energizing ice cream sandwich.

Should anyone else wonder what is to be found in Seneca, New Mexico, not to be confused with Seneca the Younger, this is about it. Maybe a certain amount of personal tragedy would play out if this were home, as besides some rough-hewn farming there doesn’t appear much else to do for those stoic enough to hammer out a living on this anvil.

It’s not even lunchtime as we enter Oklahoma. The first time we passed through this state was over by Kerrick so today had to be somewhere else, anywhere else other than that. Not that Kerrick was somehow bad, boring, or otherwise undesirable, but we have this thing of trying new roads as frequently as possible, so here we are out on one of the four western Oklahoma state lines.

Note from November 2023: I’m reviewing blog posts with the oldest dates, and when I got to this post, this image from Kenton, Oklahoma, had no text. I’m aghast that I could have made this oversight while my editor (Caroline) failed to let me know to add something or other here. Well, here I am, good at casting blame but poor in offering context, so it goes.

It must have been prairie gas or some other deliriant that caused us to miss our road north as we blew right by it and are now going south toward Boise City, Oklahoma. Lucky us that the space looks bigger than the reality of what it is and we are only about 15 miles off-track.

Home of the Rockies and the Mile-High City of Denver, the San Juan Mountains, and the Durango steam train that brings visitors to Silverton. And then there’s the eastern side of the state.

Welcome to the Great Plains, where this side of Colorado is as flat as a board, but at least there’s one tree.

Caroline claims to have seen a tumbleweed, but I see nothing and just keep driving.

Time stopped for this car, this barn, that home. The weather comes and goes, as do the grasses and trees, but people abandoned hope that this would be the place of their dreams and are no longer tending to their futures. These are our time capsules of another point in our history.

The first things that come to mind in Eastern Colorado are not head-sized sunflowers. At the moment, they and Caroline’s smile are the brightest things out here.

Somewhere between the fields, we crossed into Nebraska and an endless sea of corn.

Thirty minutes after entering Nebraska, we are crossing the North Platte River. It’s late in the setting sun’s routine of disappearance, but that doesn’t stop Caroline from scrambling down the hill to stand in a shallow braid of the river. This is the first time ever that my wife has stood in a river in Nebraska, and hopefully not the last.

For orientation purposes, we crossed from Julesburg, Colorado, into Nebraska, where the 11 became the 27 on our way to Oshkosh and further north to Alliance, where we had to call it quits due to fatigue. Dinner was at the Wonderful Kitchen Chinese Restaurant; that’s how tired we were. Our motel was the Rainbow Lodge. Neither place was great, but how amazing is it to end your day with ideas of rainbows and the things that are wonderful?