Day 3: Arkansas to Oklahoma to Texas

I’m sorry that this blog post is coming a day later than expected, but I was too tired after last night’s drive to write a worthwhile post. I’m currently writing this as we drive through New Mexico, but more on that on the day four blog.

The picture we took of the welcome to Oklahoma sign was blurry
but we got a photo of this

Day three was the polar opposite of day two. It was cold, but clear when we left our hotel in Arkansas and we soon entered into Oklahoma. It would be really awesome if the transitions between different states were more drastic, but you wouldn’t know without those large signs welcoming you to a new state. However, Oklahoma obviously got a lot more snow than rain and had not yet cleared their major roads. Thus, the first part of Oklahoma was a slow trip as we slowly followed in the paths cleared by the tractor trailers.

By the time we reached Oklahoma City, it cleared up and we were back up to speed on the roads. Oklahoma, as expected, is very flat and pretty boring. It hovered between 26 and 33 for most of the day, becoming overcast in the afternoon and not really clearing off until the evening hours.

We got the Texas welcome sign!

We entered Texas around 4 p.m. and the landscape became flatter and full of cows. Sometimes the cows looked so still that I swore they were fake. Chris has repeatedly made fun of me for this since I vocalized it. The panhandle of Texas is flat and dry, with acres of farmland and grazing fields of either side of the highway. The speed limit went from 70 to 75 as we entered Texas and we were able to pick up our speed on the last leg of today’s trip. We booked ourselves into a hotel in Amarillo for the night, thus ending day three of our trip.

Hank has been handling the trip alright. He’s majorly confused, but his body has reacted negatively to the constant travel, which is a blessing for us. He’s just being a bit stranger than he already is. We remembered quickly that he hates elevators, so staying on the first (or ground) floors of our hotels has been nice. Outside of that, he just sleeps in the car and periodically drops his toys down between the door and seat, so we’re forced to climb into the backseat to rescue his precious playthings.

Hank sleeping

In writing this blog, I’ve come to realize that my writing skills have severely diminished over the past 6-9 months. Graduating from grad school and not having a job in which I write frequently are the major culprits, but in reality, I just did not make time to write in the past year. Nevertheless, like any ability, writing takes practice and hope that in the future I will be at ease with writing once more.

Our travel distance and time for Day 3 is as follows:

Time: About 10 hours

Distance: 588.3 miles

Weather willing, we’ll try to be in Flagstaff by the end of the day on Tuesday. Til then!

- Kate