Day 5: Gallop to Weatherford

622 miles, 12 hours of travel time. That's a long day on the road, especially through the desert! We did have some adventures along the way.

And by the way, thank you to those who have prayed for our safe journey. We sense your prayers, and marvel at God's hand as we wriggle out of different circumstances, including close calls on the road, lodging problems, travel route that avoids storms, and the magnificent vehicle we obtained that helps make the trip easier and safer!


First, Ian dropped the soap in the toilet this morning. Never did find out exactly how or why, but Sherry had asked him for the soap, which was in the shower, and I guess he made a stop on the way...teenagers!

Second, Forrest bumped the fire extinguisher while loading the car and it went off, coating the floor and backs of the seats with white powder. We left the fire extinguisher behind, cleaned up as best we could, and headed out.












We saw several ruins along the way, usually partial stone houses like the one in the background of this picture.

The boys were somewhat out of sorts after about 3 hours of travel time. I took their enthusiastic picture at this rest stop.

We stopped at the Petroglyphs National Park on Lisa (Cooper)'s recommendation. We got information and headed to one of the several sites in the area. Unfortunately, it was an hour hike in 94 degree temperatures, and the returning people said they couldn't distinguish between "new" petroglyphs people had drawn and the originals. What a shame.

But the boys did pool their money with Dad and pick up this cool national parks monopoly game. You can add national parks labels to squares and cards, and they were excited. Beats video games, so I helped them. Jeremy has a majority share (and was flush with birthday money), so he gets to take it to college.

We were unable to make it to the Petrified Forest yesterday, but found this 26-inch diameter chunk at a rest stop in New Mexico.

I wanted to get a picture of the odometer at 100,000, but missed it by 88 miles.

New Mexico is the land of road construction. I believe we spent more time driving in construction zones than not, sometimes in only one lane. But traffic never slowed below the required speed.

Finally reached Texas--only two states to go! And the end of road construction. Of course, the roads were worse.

Ian had three bloody noses today. We are not sure if the dry air caused it or sinuses. But he didn't let it interrupt his enjoyment of Clive Cussler!

A sign outside of Groom, Texas announced the largest cross in the Western Hemisphere. I snapped this picture as we drove by, but as you can see, a roadsign is perfectly superimposed on the cross. I could never do that on purpose! (I did get a good picture seconds earlier)

After the arid landscape of Arizona and New Mexico, the lush green environment of Northern Texas was a welcome change.

And by the way, it turns out the flattest place in the U.S. is in Newkirk, New Mexico. I believe it.

Texas got the hottest weather today, in spite of all the green landscape, as you can see from the temperature guage below:

Needless to say, we were relieved to finally get to our destination. We underestimated the travel time, and forgot about the "jump-ahead" time change, so got to the hotel around 10:20.

Oklahoma is better than Texas, with more trees. It also has humidity, something we haven't seen for four days!

This was our longest day, with tomorrow a close second.