ON THE ROAD AGAIN

 More Miles In Our New Shoes

Call us CRAZY! It would not be the first time in our lives that this word would be used to describe either one of us and we look at this as a good thing :o) Shows we still have a sense of adventure….we hope! Taking off  in our car to drive west across the US in the middle of a winter that promises to be a doozy, some would call insane. Well, it is time for another sabbatical, so we are diving into it……………….

We are headed to the west coast of the US via the Southwest, into Los Angeles and then up the coast to San Francisco, Portland, Seattle and Vancouver, BC. Since it is winter we decided to head immediately south from Indiana to Little Rock, AK to try to avoid the snow that greeted us the morning we left town. What we encountered in Little Rock was snow and then all the way to Dallas/Fort Worth was snow, ice and cascading jack-knifed big rigs and pick-up truck accidents. Some of these immediately in front of us and others just 5 minutes ahead of us. This storm was not supposed to be here. That is why we dropped down to Dallas and Hwy. 20 instead of taking Hwy 40 through Oklahoma City, where there were blizzard conditions. Our 1 hour drive around Dallas turned into over 4 hours since we were going between 5-15 MPH the whole way watching in horror as cars were sliding all over the place like hockey pucks. We finally gave up and got a hotel room in West Fort Worth to try again the next morning.

Here are some photos of our first two days of snow and ice travel:

 Day 1: The snow as we left Indiana

Food Alert!!! Already?

We spent our first night in Little Rock mainly because we just had to eat at Gus's World Famous Fried Chicken (we have been here before when we came to see the Clinton Presidential Library, which is just down the street). If you like fried chicken, the really deep fried crispy, crispy and spicy kind. The kind that is so moist on the inside you barely have to chew it, the kind that just wants to make you have more.......this is it! You must have the fried pickles with it. The coleslaw and of course the beans and that slice of white bread. This IS the South, for cryin' out loud!

Happy me :o)

Fried dill pickles with ranch dressing. The extra crispy corn meal crust is the real kicker.

Mmmmm.......dark meat!

Day 2: Snow in Little Rock? Yep. 

The whole town shut down for 1 inch of white stuff. The bonus? It only took us about 10 minutes to drive right through the downtown freeways during morning rush hour.

We had a break in the weather as we approached Texarkana. The weather report last night said it was supposed to be overcast around Dallas.

 

 Here is how it looked as we approached Dallas. We should have been able to see the city ahead of us in the distance.  Instead we saw the first snow-fall there in 2 years.

The situation started to get more intense as the traffic got thicker, the roads became more icy and the semi's increased in number. Every bridge we started to cross around the city was just covered in ice.

Bumper cars anyone? These are the last photos we took as things got so dangerous it took both of us to keep our eyes and full attention on the road. We are so thankful that we didn't have an accident and end our trip before it even began. Our advice to you if you ever get stuck in icy conditions is get off the road into a warm hotel and wait it out. The stress and danger of being out in it, isn't worth it.

Day 3: Fort Worth, TX to Carlsbad, NM

We woke to 18 degrees and sunny skies. Luckily, we had stopped our driving last night just to the west of where the worst of the weather system was. We hit the road and headed for Abilene, where we should have spent the night last night. We decided to stop there anyway because Rowan had found an interesting sculpture for us to have a look at. The piece is called 'Jacobs Dream' and is located on the campus of

--> Abilene Christian University. The sculpture is a huge bronze piece describing Genesis 28 and --> of angels ascending a ladder to the gates of heaven. 

 

 Looking at all this art made us hungry, so here is food alert #2 :o)

I could not leave Texas without having some Texas BBQ so we asked the googleGod where the best BBQ was in Abilene. 

This is it!

Not fancy, but we didn't want fancy, we wanted delicious.

 Start with a slab-O-fries.........

add KILLER beef ribs, slaw, house made pickles, sauce and house made banana pudding (not pictured.....). Super delicious. All of it!

We headed west from Abilene through basically nowhere for miles and miles on country 2 lane roads to get to Carlsbad, New Mexico. The only thing to look at were tumble weeds, oil & gas wells, cotton fields, cotton, fields, wind farms, cotton fields, oil wells........you get it.

The wind farms went on for miles and miles. Good to see the folks in Texas are finally getting  a conscience about renewable energy.

Nowhere with a view of nothing. For miles. Thank God for our Sirius XM Radio and that 80's music set!

Huge cubes of harvested cotton. For miles. Most likely on its way to China to be made into clothing to be shipped back to America.

End of the road reward, a cool salmon colored sunset cloud over our hotel when we arrived in Carlsbad. Even though today's drive was pretty bleak, there is a strange beauty to the back and beyond. One thing for sure, you have to be a special kind of person to live in these parts, where there is nothing out here but basically you.

Stay tuned for more adventure coming from the road. Carlsbad Caverns is next.