Road Trip Day 12 - 2007-07-31

Check out a map of my journey today here:
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&hl=en&geocode=&saddr=Fayetteville,+AR&daddr=Amarillo,+TX&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=42.901912,82.617188&ie=UTF8&ll=35.698495,-97.996665&spn=11.036641,20.654297&z=6&om=1

Check out pictures from today here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/10306971@N03/sets/72157601134814395/

This brings my time in Fayetteville to a close. Justin whipped up some good blueberry pancakes for Nikki and I. Then he played a bit with Blue on the table, which was adorable (see pictures). After saying our goodbyes, I hit the road.

Not too much to report on the drive, it was long and pretty dull. Yet again, though, the sky looked fantastic, so you can look forward to a bunch of sky-while-driving pictures. I saved the best for last, so hang in there!

I needed to stop for lunch and decided that I would try to go local rather than stop at some chain. I punched in "food" in my GPS and saw a place called Oscar's Sandwich House in Bristow, Oklahoma. Oscar's adjoined this Chinese place, which I assumed shared the parking lot that I pulled into, because the sign said "Restaurant Parking Only". As I walked away from my car, this belligerent Chinese woman berated me for parking where I shouldn't in broken English. Then she informed me that I was also not parked in a spot: I was parked on a handicap ramp. Now, that might seem like a really odd thing to do, but the ramp was maybe 4 inches high and 2 feet long. No yellow paint, no handicap sign, nothing! Just white lines on either side like a normal spot. I thought about telling her why it was confusing, but thought better of it.

I got a nice warmed turkey sandwich from Oscars. The person making my sandwich was quite nice. She asked if I'd be eating while driving and then informed me that she had packed my sandwich to make it easier to eat and give me plenty of napkins. Not bad!

I drove for a few more hours and was out in the middle of nowhere about 50 miles from Amarillo before I noticed that my tank was almost empty. I could probably get another 20-30 miles or so. I checked the GPS, and there were no gas stations listed on my route for another 50 miles! The closest ones were 20 miles away, but were perpendicular to the direction I was traveling. I did not want to go 45 minutes out of my way to get gas, so I just kept driving and hoped that the GPS was wrong. Sure enough, I found a Texaco about 10 miles down the road. I was sure sweating though! That would have been awful to get stuck in the middle of Texas during summer with no gas.

At around 6:30, I checked into my hotel: a La Quinta. It isn't bad at all, nice and clean with WiFi and such. I grabbed some Taco Bell for dinner because I didn't really feel like eating anything that would take too long. Since then, I've just been taking it easy and working on this blog! I hate it when I get behind like this.