Road Trip

So my awesome younger brother and I just drove across almost half the United States on Saturday and Sunday. It was a long two days.

On Day One, we drove through the entire state of New Mexico. First impressions were that it was very dry, rather level and uninteresting in most places, with small shrubs and large rocky mountains off in the distance (which, no matter how far we drove, we never reached).

I think it's safe to say that the interstates in the U.S. always take the most boring route possible. If it's interesting, it's probably still on Route 66.

After a twelve-hour drive the first day, and losing two hours from Daylights Savings Time, we arrived at our hotel in Amarillo, TX at 2:10 a.m. -- fourteen hours after leaving Tucson (we got a way later start than we would have liked).

I've never slept so well in my life. I was out.

The next morning, at our continental breakfast ...

You Texans. You would.

Then it was on to Oklahoma!

Those of you who have drive through any part of the Oklahoma/Texas panhandle know that I am not exaggerating in the slightest bit when I say that there is nothing flatter than the panhandle.

Soooooooooo flaaaaaaaaaaaaaat.

There's nothing out there but fields (flat fields with nothing growing very high yet), the occasional farmhouse, and some trees which that farmer planted to protect his house from the sweeping wind (which would randomly buffet my car a foot to the left now and then as I drove through).

The second leg of the trip was uneventful and didn't take very long (only four hours or so). And once in Oklahoma City, we had a few hours to spare before I had to drop Stan off at the airport, so we got lunch and caught the tail end of a baseball game in Bricktown -- which just happened to be the Big 12 Championship game. The perfect ending to the sibling-bonding road trip.

And then naturally, to wrap up an otherwise perfect trip, we got completely lost on the way to the airport and thought for a moment that we'd miss Stan's flight. But we didn't, and all is well.

So ends the first half of my cross-country trip to my new home. Stay tuned for tales of my shenanigans in Oklahoma and the road trip to Alabama.