Double day of driving!

OK so the last post I mentioned the 300 miles a day.  Maybe I should have said 300ish..... We are heading west.  We have an appointment in Tucson for some improvements to CC.  We don't have to rush so we decided to drive two days.  Spend a couple of nights at a resort, then drive two days.

So we left Grove, OK and are going to a campground on the Oklahoma / Texas border.  It's about 348 miles which isn't bad.  We planned on a picnic stop to break it up then fill on diesel near our campground.  Not surprisingly lunch plans changed.

So some background.   Everytime we (Bill, Rita, Brandi & Jackie) see a buffalo, we call them buffalo not bison, one of us we undoubtedly say, "look at the head on that one."  That's because when the girls were little 7th or 8th grade we took them snow skiing in New Mexico.  We stopped at a roadside restaurant, Cherokee Restaurant, and discovered they had buffalo burgers.  Since we never had that before we all had one.  Delicious.  The server mentioned that they had some actual buffalo in a corral outside.  Being that the girls never saw a buffalo in person we went over for a look.  When we walked around the building there was a monstrous buffalo standing right at the fence.  With it that close I couldn't help myself and I said "look at the head on that one."  That phrase has now been a constant in our lives.  EVERYTIME we see one, "look at the head on that one."

So back to today.  As we we were driving down I-40, low and behold I see Cherokee Restaurant and the corral with a couple of buffalo inside.  We made a quick, but safe exit.  Luckily they offered inside dining so we did what we needed to do, Buffalo burgers!  Well except for Mica, she went for the Cherokee chicken.  We all agreed that the burgers were still delicious.  After lunch we went to the corral.

He just sat there & grunted at us.

 Back on the road after talking to our girls and reminiscing about that first visit.  We finished the day pulling into a small 16 site campground just off the interstate.  We were the first ones there & picked a nice shady spot for the night.  We had plenty of time for dinner and then we sat outside until it got dark.  There was a pretty good breeze, so no bugs.  We introduced the kids to Bocce Ball.  They played it all evening.  What a great stop.

Next morning we took our time & had a hardy breakfast & hit the road.  Now we are heading to Tijeras, NM, about 360 miles.  We crossed into Texas a mile later and kept going west to New Mexico.  We crossed the border & into Mountain time right at lunch.  So a picnic at the rest stop.

Where as Texas was pretty flat.  New Mexico was not.  It was beautiful, hills, plateaus, mesas & buttes.  A very nice drive.  We arrived in Tijeras, New Mexico around 3:30.  We're in Hidden Valley Mountain Resort.  This was one of the few times we couldn't get CC to level.  The sites are built into the valley wall and not quite made for long rigs.  But after using some levelling pads we got her set
up.

Kids burned up some energy running around and Rita declared we were going out for pizza, yea!  We drove down Old Route 66 to the next town and ate at Pizza Barn.  Great pizza and 22 different draught beers.  Of course I went local.

We did time it right, a thunderstorm hit while we were eating, but was done when we walked out.  We swung by the grocery store for a couple of things then back to CC.  Kids did another energy burn.  Then reading & bedtime.