Miles: 5349
(above) We knew we should have taken that left turn in Albuquerque...
We weren't able to hook up with Malu, but we did find two good comic stores in Albuquerque: Comic Warehouse (where we bought a bunch of comics) and Astro Zombies (where we bought a bunch of Star Wars stuff).
We had lunch at Satellite Coffee, then followed Central Avenue (old Route 66) out of town. Along the way, we passed some fun places; here's a picture especially for our friend June:
We made good time, and a little before 5 pm we stopped at Stuckey's. This was always a favorite stop for the Sakers family on road trips. We bought lots of tacky souvenirs, including a box of Stuckey's peanut brittle and a Stuckey's Pecan Log Roll.
During our last fifty miles in New Mexico, we passed through the outskirts of a tremendous thunderstorm.
Soon we were in Texatucky, zooming east across the panhandle. We had to shake our heads at the "Welcome to Texas" sign; underneath it said, "Proud to be the home of President George W. Bush." Perhaps the word "proud" means something different in Texatucky.
We were very conscious of being in Texatucky; we tried our best not to be gay or black the whole time we were there.
About 8:00 pm we stopped in Amarillo to get bread and such. It was stinky -- not in the same way as the Great Salt Lake, more various smells reminiscent of cattle. We ran into a lady who was going west on I-40, and wondering where there was a Wal-Mart along her way. We whipped out our Wal-Mart edition of the Rand McNally Road Atlas, and soon found a Wal-Mart just 10 miles away in Amarillo. It was good to be of service to a fellow traveller.
Finally, about 10:45 pm, we crossed the border into Oklatucky. We stopped at the first exit we saw with motels, and settled into the Day's Inn.
A brief word about road signs. You know those green-and-white signs that tell you what towns are up next? Every once in a while, we run across a pair of towns that make a person's name. In the past we've seen Mauzy Broadway (Don used that one for an alien drag queen); Washington Westwood Hohokus (now a character in Dance for the Ivory Madonna; and our current favorite, a really great porn star name: Ashley Sugar Notch.
We expected to see a lot of name road signs on this trip, but so far we haven't run into anything really good. Until tonight: Erick Sweetwater. We figure he might be a colleague of Ashley's.
Tomorrow: to Oklahoma City and beyond.
2 comments:
Love that you got to go to Stuckey's. That used to be the place we stopped on our family excursions from Syracuse NY to Harrisburg PA to Philadelphia PA to Arlington VA. We would travel once a year or once every couple years to see all the relatives and such. Stuckeys was in PA and in Delaware. Stuckeys was fun!
Speaking of town names, there's a lovely sign in, hmm, I think it's New Jersey: North East Rising Sun.
I always thought "Stuckey's" was a great name for a tourist trap where the visitors are the stuckees.
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