Pining for the Fjords

Part 4 of the blog series took us from Amarillo to Tulsa, then around the city of Tulsa, where we enjoyed a gorgeous day full of history and great food! At a fantastic rest area near Conway, Missouri - all of the shelters were Route 66-themed When we made our reservations for the KOA Tulsa NE , we knew our site would be trackside at Will Rogers Downs , and our time there was right in the middle of their spring thoroughbred racing season.  We also knew that, unfortunately, we'd likely arrive after the Tuesday races concluded (if they happened at all, because of the extremely windy weather).  What we didn't anticipate, however, is that a set of Thursday afternoon races meant that the horses would be out working the track on Thursday morning, so we had a chance to see them doing their laps as we made breakfast and packed up! Coming around the bend! And down the straight! As you might imagine, the dogs were losing their tiny minds at all of this. While our breakfasts on travel da...

In Part 3   of the "camping our way east" blog series, we spent time in Amarillo, Texas, including an extremely rainy day (we kept ourselves amused eating our way across the city). Bea soaking up the sun outside Tulsa, OK As I mentioned in the previous blog, we all slept much better on Tuesday night than on Monday at the Amarillo KOA Journey,  crashing hard and not waking up until our alarm dinged at 7am.  With the rain thankfully over, I immediately headed to the laundry room to start a load of wash; since the RV park was partially dirt, we had mud everywhere, and our designated set of dog towels desperately needed a refresh. For his part, Chris started coaxing the girls outside; Zoe went pretty willingly, but Bea, still convinced she'd be as cold and wet as the day before, was a harder sell.  Eventually, it was time to start coffee/tea and breakfast and get ready to pack up. Bea says she'll stay warm and dry inside, thank you! Behold, our mud pit - significantly sm...

In Part 2 of the blog series about our camping trip east, we spent the day around Grants, NM, seeing really cool old stuff and drinking delicious beer ! I took this amazing shot with my phone through my eclipse glasses - impressive, isn't it? And here you thought I was only crappy at taking pictures of nighttime stars! We set an early alarm for Monday, April 8th; while I hopped in the shower right away, Chris ran to a local coffee shop to get us coffee/chai and bagel sandwiches.  After finishing our just okay breakfast offerings, we finished cleaning up, packing up, hooking up, and we got on the road around 8:15am.  Today's drive would take us from Grants, NM to Amarillo, TX, a distance of around 370 miles or so; all but a few miles on the front and back end of the voyage would be on the 40 East, which means it was both ridiculously easy to navigate and speedy (although we don't travel at the posted speed limit - 75, in this case - it's still faster to go via freeway ...