The Great American Cross-Country Trip - Day 1

Day 1 (Sunday, 01/24/2010):

• 9:10 AM - A lovely day with the Texan sun shining bright and we are off. We have an excellent Garmin GPS to guide us and good ol' atlas as a backup. We have also stocked ourselves on fuel, food and water. Gee, that almost sounds as if I depart for the wilderness! My wife's experience and better eyesight make us decide that I take the wheel for the first half of the day and she, the remainder.
• 11:10 AM - We stop at Jolly, TX on 287N, eat some munchies and get some gas. Hehe..Fill up gas that is. A nice cheap Valero pump offering it at $2.55/gallon. The speed limit is a cool 70!
  
• 2:28 PM - We stop at Amarillo, TX on 287N. Its amazing how even just driving and/or navigating can make one hungry! Since we are not exactly gourmets, McDonalds it is - a juicy chicken club sandwich for me and my more health conscious wife prefers a southwestern chicken salad. We arm ourselves with some energy drink-y stuff to ward off the post-lunch stupor, fill some Pilot gas at a joyful $2.44/gallon and off we are. Oh, and wifey takes over.
• 6:30 PM - My wife has driven for 5 hours non-stop!! How? I take this note at Albuquerque, New Mexico on I-40W and we have driven west across TX and into NM. We have switched time-zones and gained an hour - that's how! Oh and why is NM a breeze? A speed limit of 75! The incessant driving has taken a toll on us though. We are grumpy and hungry and decaffeinated. We fill up complainingly at a Valero pump offering fuel at $2.57/gallon and perk ourselves up with some much needed caffeine. We also decide to gorge on some nice Chinese food. People, I should tell ya that Urbanspoon is gooooood and the Kung-Pao chicken that it recommends doesn't disappoint either! With our spirits pepped up, we decide to drive a couple of hours more before we rest for the night.
• 9:45 PM - Ah, the beauty of an iPhone. We look up the map, vote Gallup as the place where we want to dock, call up Quality Inn and book a room there - all in a span of 5 minutes! We choose Gallup, NM as the night stop because it is the boldest city that appears on the NM border on Google maps. Why Quality Inn? We want a clean safe place that serves breakfast and does not tell on our pockets. I cannot emphasize enough the importance of having a AAA membership - we get a cool 12.5% discount on the hotel price . Now for some sweet sweet rest...

Terrain talk - Texas with its vast stretches of flat barren land, sparse shrubbery and straight roads easily lulls you into somnolence, if aided by a fullish tummy that is. We have a strong sun during the morning half. It eases off during the post-lunch drive and temperatures decide to lean towards the frigid as we pass through NM. NM is flat, rugged and interspersed with small flat hills. Gallup has decided to swathe itself in blankets of snow.

I also notice that in this country, we act differently. Back home, I never recount being excited at the prospect of spotting trains or cows or horses and scrambling for the camera to take pictures. We have driven for 13 hrs, 35 mins (including rest-stops) and covered approximately 780 miles today.