– Las Vegas, New Mexico to Denton, Texas –

Today wasn’t a long day, and we make the drive from Tucumcari back to Denton pretty regularly, so I’ll keep this one short and sweet. We started our morning at 5am in Las Vegas. Everyone showered and packed and met for a lovely Best Western breakfast in the lobby of the hotel. We were out of there by 6:30am, which isn’t too bad, but I really feel like we can do better if we really want to. We’ve got a good rhythm, we just need to speed it up a bit. We’ve done it before, on the way to Alaska, but we were definitely more practiced then.

It was a cool morning, but not nearly as cold as previous mornings, and Mark and I wore shorts. It turned out to be the right decision, because by the time we made it into Texas, it was in the 80s. With the seat heaters on in the fancy new Suburban, you don’t even notice the chill. I’m getting ahead of myself though. We took Highway 104 out of Las Vegas to get to Tucumcari, which is a road that Mark loves to drive. It’s a quiet, two-lane road, and since it is somewhat remote, no one drives it, especially before 8am on a Monday.

We didn’t see a car for miles, although we did encounter many mule deer, a few whitetail deer, and several herds of elk. Dad was driving, which meant Mom was in the front seat, back-seat driving. She’s really great at that- she even stomps on imaginary brakes. They never seem to work, somehow. Every time we saw an animal, she’d squeal about it potentially crossing the road, grab her ‘Oh-Shit’ handle (you know, the ones normal people use to get in and out of the car), and start searching her purse for her iPhone with her other hand. We stopped every time to take some pictures; some of them even turned out.

If it seems like I’m teasing her, I absolutely am. I like seeing wildlife as much as the next person, but you can only see so many four-footed grazing critters before they all start to look the same. It’s cute that she wants pictures of all of them.

In Tucumcari, we stopped for gas and took some pictures of the Quay County courthouse. It looks like New Mexico will be our next state for courthouse hunting, since we finished Texas about a month ago. Mark got four courthouses in New Mexico on this trip, I believe. Quay County had the prettiest, in my opinion. The others were all less attractive, or tiny (with the new courthouse being abandoned in one town).

Since today was our last day, we were really plugging away at our book, trying to finish it before we got back to Gainesville and went home to Denton without my parents. They wanted to hear the end of the book too, and I don’t get many other opportunities to read to them. Mark keeps trying to get me to record myself reading some books for the internet, so maybe someday you guys can listen to me reading aloud as well. I’m sure it is thrilling for all involved.

We drove through Amarillo without stopping and ended up getting lunch in Clarendon, at Sonic. Ah, the fast food grilled cheese. I haven’t missed it at all. Sonic is a nice excuse to eat mozzarella sticks, though, so I can’t complain too much. At least they have something I can eat at all.

After lunch, we were really ready to be home. We’d switched drivers earlier in the morning, and we switched back mid-afternoon so Mark could have a break. For some reason it is much easier to read from the front seat than the back. I think the acoustics must be better.

I don’t know if you can tell, but the cooler in that photo is in the middle of the Suburban, which is not how we had it when we went to Alaska. Mom wanted her new car to have bench seats in the middle, but it turned out that all of the Suburbans she could find around here had captain’s chairs in the middle instead, so that’s what she ended up getting. It actually turned out pretty well. The cooler makes a nice arm rest, drinks are easier to access, Ripley has a little more room without the cooler in her space, and she is easier to put into the car. I like this configuration better, myself.

We wrapped up our book by about 3:45pm, and we were in Gainesville by 4:30. We dropped my parents at their house and took their Suburban home with us to finish unpacking the car. Tomorrow morning Mom will come by and switch cars with me, since she parked mine at her house over the weekend. We had a pretty good trip overall, and I think we will probably take at least one more all together before the year is out. We’re talking about doing Death Valley together over winter break at the end of the year. It’s really the only time to visit the hottest place in the United States.

– Trip Total : 1,555 miles –