RV Fun Trips --- On the Road to Albuquerque ---

On the Road to Albuquerque
October 2002
Page 4

Guymon to Tucumcari

The day began early with us looking at the sun rising up over a small knoll straight ahead of our motorhome. With the campground being an older facility, that meant that our motorhomes would just fit the spaces. Our rig actually hung out into the roadway a couple of feet. As we were leaving camp, the closeness was very noticeable as Tom drove his coach in front of us on the way to the highway.

The sun rises over the prairie

Today was another routine day on the road. Leaving Guymon we headed for Tucumcari, New Mexico on highway 54. This route would take our three coach caravan across a corner of the Texas Panhandle. It was only 20 miles to the border town of Texhoma.

Tom drives his motorhome past ours as we pull out of the campground

Welcome to Texas — Photo by Nora

The largest town in this part of the country is Dalhart, Texas. Shortly after entering Texas on our way toward Dalhart, we drove by a large, cattle feed lot. There were thousands and thousands of cattle just standing around. We were fortunate to be on the upwind side of most of the huge stockyard. It occurred to me that this was part of the reason for the flies in this part of the country.

It was good to be upwind from these critters

Once we left the feed lot behind, the scenery changed very little as we drove from Texas into New Mexico across a mostly flat desert terrain. Again we had a railroad next to the highway where we would see an occasional freight train.

Freight trains are common out here

We arrived in Tucumcari just before noon. We stopped to restock our supply of groceries. Then it was lunchtime so we all decided to have lunch in our motorhomes while parked next to the grocery store. Across the street from the store was a coin-operated car wash that had bays that would accommodate our RVs.

A good place for a lunch break in Tucumcari

Kevin and Tina were the first to finish their lunch, so Kevin pulled their rig into one of the car wash bays. The timing was great. When they had finished washing their motorhome, Kay and I were ready to pull our coach into the wash bay. I must have shoveled a load of about 20 quarters into the coin slots before our coach and car was clean.

I could not believe the large amount of dirt that came off my motorhome. When I leaned over to spay the dirt away from the bottom of our motorhome, I could see that strands of Bermuda grass were still hanging from the front axle. Big clumps of dirt dropped from inside the fender wells. I left thirty or forty pounds of crud behind as I drove away from the car wash.

Again, the timing was very good, now Tom was ready to drive their motorhome into the car wash. While he was spraying the accumulation of a small part of Kansas off his motorhome, Kay and I returned to our spot in the grocery store parking lot to get ready for the next leg of our journey for the day. As we all got back on the road, Tom said that he would go in first next time to wash his motorhome. Being last, it looked as if he had left a very big mess when he was finished getting his coach clean.