Katie & Paul's Excellent Adventure

01.05.2010

Day 4: Little Rock, AR – Albuquerque, NM

Three states in fourteen hours isn’t as impressive as nine states in twelve hours

Paul is very excited about his soda in Oklahoma.

I'm so sorry I didn't post a blog entry yesterday! Our very well-intentioned-yet-slightly-overbearing motel had a very bad connection and I couldn't get this to post. It's here now!

Little Paul and I saw the sun rise over the Bill Clinton Presidential Library as we left Little Rock. I have to admit that the Little Rock was not on my list of places to see until our brief stay there. It’s a really pretty city,

Next stop was Oklahoma City, OK where we had planned a lunch break. Well, we did NOT like that city very much at all! This is basically because someone beeped at us as we tried to change lanes. So, we left the city and grabbed lunch at some fast food taco place where the manager (or maybe he was just a guy) went from table to table to ask us how the food was.

However, I discovered something horrible at this fast food restaurant: I have…a…pimple. I don’t know where it came from. I haven’t been touching my face or eating greasy food…oh wait a minute. I HAVE been eating greasy food.

And speaking of all the food we’ve been eating on this trip, Paul and I are now sporting matching swollen bellies. We seriously look pregnant. It’s so sad. I bet if you rub my belly right now, you’d get good luck. I’m not kidding! However, once I look back over the day for what exactly I’ve been eating, it hasn’t been that much food. However, I am exercising, oh, about three minutes a day (Paul too) so that doesn’t help.

Note to self: go to the gym Monday and re-up my membership there.

AND back to the trip. Another interesting tidbit about Oklahoma is that every small town is the birthplace of some country star. We saw the bithtown (yes, that’s a word) of Garth Brooks and the birthtown of Carrie Underwood—and that’s just some of the towns off the highway!

We eventually hit Texas. We lucked out here. Others have warned me that Texas will take forever to pass through, leaving the driver achy and slightly crazed. However, we just drove through the handle, so it only took a few hours. Chris Bear was actually the most excited to see Texas. This is the first time in 18 years that he has returned to the place of his birth. We have videos of him looking excitedly out the window at his very, very flat homeland.

Finally, we hit New Mexico. That was a fun transition to witness. The land we saw in Texas was flat and bland until we were 20 miles outside of New Mexico. All of a sudden we turned a corner and mountains sprouted up all around us. The sun was setting as we crossed the New Mexican border and because we were driving towards it, the sunset lasted over an hour.

We had enchiladas for dinner, which just made us fatter (but seriously, I only had ONE!) and are now relaxing at a hotel Paul researched for me on his iPhone on the way. (I think he looked up “hotels” and “clean.”) It’s nice, except the lady at the front desk is CRAZY! Toothless and pleasant, she giggled her way through our checking in, repeating things two or three times, and giving us a nice discount. She was really tickled to put down on our registration that our vehicle was “big truck.” She giggled so heartily, you couldn’t help but laugh along.

Tomorrow we head out to the Grand Canyon and then to Las Vegas! WooWee! It’s amazing to think that just the day before last we were in a snowstorm in Boston. Today, we’re back in our short sleeves. It’s pretty incredible.

Paul shows Chris Bear the place of his birth.

Paulie driving at night, looking for our hotel.