Interstate 40; Arizona to Oklahoma

We picked up I-40 at Kingman, AZ on Friday and arrived in OKC this evening, Monday. Now to arrive in Oklahoma two days after loosing in the first round of the NBA playoffs is somewhat humbling, but oh well! We are here for several reasons; it's our first time in this part of the state, we've wanted to see the Federal Building Memorial, and best of all, our nephew, Matt, is graduating from OU Law School.

We had some interesting stops along the way, Flagstaff, Albuquerque, and Pampa.  After a fairly big lunch in Kingman, we had resolved to eat a salad at home that night but that was before we stopped at Black Bart's RV just east of Flagstaff. The RV park is in the OK variety, but Black Bart's Restaurant and Musical Review is way better than that. The waitstaff all sing with the awesome piano player. At times they took turns on stage, other times they all broke into song wherever they happened to be. Great fun and good salads too!

We stayed at High Desert RV just west of Albuquerque, a place we have enjoyed before. We got in early enough to have a homecooked meal and see the full moon rise over the mountains.

Pampa was our first stop back in Texas for a year. We stayed at the city park which turned out to be great! It seems that there is so much oil field work in the panhandle that it was available only because they limit stays to 14 days. We were in Pampa to get the vehicles inspected and get our driver's licenses up dated. Mine was expired and could have been handled on the internet, but we were here anyway and I felt like having a horrible picture taken today. Russell had learned that he has been driving with the wrong type of license for an RV our size. He studied all the way over and made a 90 on the written test. He also had to take a driving test and did very well on that one also. The folks at the DMV were very nice and helpful.

We'd had mail sent to Pampa because we expected to be there several days. Fortunately it was already in this morning. The post office in Pampa is a beautiful old building that I really enjoyed visiting. We had expected to be at least 2 days getting all of these things accomplished. We were gone before noon! It was really amazing to have all of these chores; 2 vehicles inspected, a driving test, a license renewal, and mail in a single morning. Small town America is great! Coming out of the post office a tall cowboy was walking in. He smiled, tipped his hat and said, "How'r yew this mornin?" How could you say anything but "GREAT!"

We had lunch in the town of McLean. Now unless you are related to Russell, you probably never heard of it, but Russsell's Aunt Irene, Uncle James and their family lived there for many years. We visited with a couple at the Shell station, which has THE BEST HAMBURGER IN TEXAS, who remembered James owning the Chevy dealership. He asked about all of the kids. Of course the kids are all about 60 now, but it was fun to share a memory.