road trip Archives

Well we didn’t quite make it to Yuma by 3:10, but then again the film was called 3:10 TO Yuma, so your guess is as good as mine as to what time it was due to get in. Knowing how the current Amtrak timetable works, probably 6 am the next day. Whatever time it is, don’t ask Ivan to look it up for you as he’d tell you the time for the train in the opposite direction. Bizarrely one of the rooms we got was 310, how serendipitous, but despite all the references to the film, there is no way any of us could be mistaken for Russell Crowe (although my holiday beard is coming along nicely).

The mention of trains and Ivan brings me to the big news, the party is going to split tomorrow lunchtime. As the guys were not able to get a train at any stage on the trip Ivan had decided he didn’t want to go to four corners and wanted to spend a couple of days in LA. He spent a good couple of hours in the car this morning using Rag’s air card to book a car and hotel in LA for them to then catch up with us again in Vegas.

However back to today, and again I have given away the ending in the first paragraph, but yes we did end up in Yuma, Arizona, adding an extra state and another 460 miles onto our journey.

We started the day by jumping states quite early on and hit Arizona first thing. Our destination, Tombstone. We weren’t sure whether to go there or not, but a little research on the internet suggested it may be worth a try, although we were concerned that it’d be shut like most places we’d been to. Either that or be a huge disappointment like Roswell.

The good news is that the weather had warmed up and it was sunny so we were all in good spirits when we arrived in Tombstone to find what we’d hoped for, an authentic looking cowboy town. They had a main street all done up to look like it might have done back in the days of the Wild West. Ok so it was a bit tacky and OTT, but that’s what we’d been looking for. It was a shame we didn’t really have the time to explore fully, I’m sure I could have happily spent a day or two there touring the museums and watching the shootout at the OK Corral etc. If you are ever down Tucson way, I highly recommend spending the day in Tombstone. However we knew we had some miles to cover and we moseyed on out of there.

Next we tried to find the aircraft bone yard, something my brother had mentioned was in Tucson and as we were zinging by on the interstate we should check out. This one we didn’t research so well so guessed it would be somewhere near the US Air Force Base. As we approached we could see lots of planes so headed in that general direction. Again not wanting to spend any money we didn’t look at the museum or try and find the tour, we just drove around the outside for a bit getting frustrated that we couldn’t see anything so turned around and got back onto the interstate.

From there it was just pretty constant driving into Yuma making sure we hid all the fruit and Mexican immigrants we’d been smuggling along with our pillows past the border patrols.

Yuma itself, like many American towns has some right shit holes, and we drove past those, eventually ending up at our most expensive motel thus far. Not that it’s any better quality than anywhere else, just that Yuma seems to over charge. We did end up in a bar & grill for dinner tonight and they were running a sports quiz in the bar, as it was free to enter we took part thinking we’d be lucky to get any answers. Ok so we only did get the 5 out of the 30 questions, but that is 4 more than I thought we’d do at the start and at least we took part. Plus that was our last night as a group together until Vegas or possibly for the entire trip.

Our final challenge as a four is to hit the beach at San Diego to finish the coast to coast and to rack up 4,000 miles as a foursome which should be achieved well before lunch. Then we can work out how we are going to pick up the car at the airport from a company none of us have heard of and separate the luggage.

Once we do split, Rag and I will continue to blog and treat the remainder as a road trip as we had originally planned on it being just the Dynamic Duo but we may not get to see four corners as it will mean an awful amount of driving for little ol’ me. Let’s see how it goes.

Well it had to happen, 7 days, over 3000 miles and four blokes in a car with dirty laundry, the cracks are beginning to show, and I don't mean the one from Rag's trousers slipping down.

Today was tough, another 520 miles, one new state and one new time zone. We have made it to the far border of New Mexico and into Mountain time.

We are all beginning to get tired from the constant travelling and the unknowns of a different motel each night, plus a lot of beer was consumed yesterday. Rag's GPS tracking tool had failed last night as you can probably tell from above, we did escape the hell hole that was Beloit, unfortunately the tracker doesn't think so, which was annoying him. Ivan was beginning to get bored of the constant travelling and the failure to jump on a train for a change of scene for a day or so this was also beginning to take it's toll. I was also getting concerned that all of the additional stops along the way were making our arrival time in Vegas quite late, plus with the weekend taken up by the NASCAR, I'd have no time to gamble.

Anyway we set off and took a last look at the steakhouse to see how many body bags they were unloading in the morning and headed off towards Roswell. To say that drive was dull was an understatement, the only highlight was for me as I managed to get the caravan up to 95 mph. Trust me, on a Sunday morning there was no one else on a road so straight it disappeared off the end of the horizon. In fact I did get some enjoyment from driving through the tumbleweeds blowing across the road, when you hit them at that speed they totally disintegrate.

We did pass through a couple of interesting towns, they all seem to have at least one or two mottos, we liked the one for Portales (See Day 7 Road Trip Photos). We also passed through Friona in Texas which claimed to be the Cheeseburger capital of Texas. What amazed us was that other than a Sonic burger outlet (see previous posts on thoughts of their fare) we could not find anywhere that actually sold cheeseburgers.



Doing a bit of research it is because they hold an annual cheeseburger festival and have more head of cattle within a 50 mile radius than anywhere else.

Anyway, we arrived in Roswell just before lunch and were driving down the main street and were failing to find anything alien or crash related whatsoever. We decided to pull in and do a quick Google to find that there was a UFO museum that was free to enter but a $2 donation was suggested, but nothing much else listed. We found the museum and parked outside, went in and found that we had to sign the guestbook, so decided just to go to the gift shop only to find that we needed to sign the book for that also, so just went up the road, found a tat shop, bought some tat and went back to the car. Within 15 minutes we’d turned the car around, taken a couple of photos and headed back out of town. If we thought Bald Knob was disappointing, this was even worse. We weren’t sure what to expect but we expected more. Here was another opportunity to cash in and the mettle had failed to be grasped.

Our next port of call was Tucson Arizona, but we knew that was out of our reach for the day so just headed out as far as we could towards the border. We had to make a quick stop at the Billy the Kid museum where we found an interesting guest in the toilets (See Day 7 Road Trip Photos), but other than that, it was a pretty long drive through some very interesting but very samey type lanDSCapes. We hadn’t really associated New Mexico with mountains and snow but that is what we found, it is quite picturesque in small doses.

We have ended up in Lordsburg a few miles from the border with Arizona, yet another town made up of broken down houses and closed businesses with a few chain motels and fast food outlets next to the interstate, kind of what we are now used to on this trip.

Tomorrow is an Arizona day, with the plan to end up on the far border with California at the end of the day. At that point we may split the party in two, but that is still to come.

As today was a quiet day, I will fill in a bit more detail of incidents I had previously failed to blog.

When we landed in Beloit (yes there again) we were looking for somewhere to buy beer so I looked in the Yellow pages, I found a shop called Richard Liquor which made us laugh (what is the shortened form of the name Richard - look if I have to explain it further the humour is obviously above you).

We also had an interesting phone call yesterday morning. It was the Days Inn from Fayetteville asking if we’d accidentally packed one of their pillows when we’d left Friday morning. Hmmm, how do you accidentally pack a pillow? Again I won’t incriminate the culprit, however we did do a good job of convincing the poor lady on the other end of the phone that we didn’t have it. We’ll only know for certain if they believed us or not when Rag gets his credit card statement and we see if an extra $10 has been added or not. I suppose it wouldn’t count if we left it behind in the next Days Inn that we stay in. I suppose if we are not endangering our lives on this trip we are becoming petty criminals, it wouldn’t be a road trip without a little rule bending.

Well we made it back alive, for now.

We wimped out of the 72oz steak challenge, me mostly as you had to eat the side dishes that came with it including salad, yuk. If you decided to take the challenge on it cost $72 if you failed to eat the 72 ounces within one hour, but you have to do this at a table on a raised stage. If you did manage the whole steak, it was free.

Whilst we were there one guy took on the challenge and managed it with just 4 seconds to spare. Apparently the same guy keeps coming back to take on the challenge so now they only allow repeats every three months. Looking on the wall of shame 8,516 have succeeded thus far, with 10 in the last 3 weeks.

Personally I think Ivan and I did pretty well packing in over 30 ounces each plus a desert each aswell. Rag and John did fair quite so well.

Am now back in the hotel and all is well thus far, let's see how things are once they've worked there way through the system in the early hours.

If you are in Amarillo, or doing the old Route 66 thing I recommend a visit, it was a bit cheesy inside, but came across as a real Texan steakhouse experience, but then we are tourists so maybe that's what it suits best.

****UPDATE*****
The cows got their revenge at 5 am. I'd hate to think what the bathroom of the guy who did the whole 72oz looks like.

Depending upon how the day goes we could be making further Texas, New Mexico and Arizona Steak Deposits.

Must go, no really must GO.

Well it should have been if any of us had had the insight to bring any appropriate music on the trip. On previous days we'd missed many an opportunity to guide us along our way with music themed or based upon our current location, and today was no different, however as we were all dingbats we had to listen to the world's worst country music (is there any other kind?) on the radio.

When I'd last left you we were sheltering in a crap Motel in Northern Kansas. Well today we racked up two more new states and just another 430 miles on the clock.

We started early if for no other reason than to leave Beloit behind and headed for Kinsley. The visit to Kinsley was inspired by Dave Gorman as he had encountered it on his own Road Trip across America, and as we were going to be nearby I couldn't not visit. Kinsley is yet another point that claims to be midway across America. This one says it is 1561 miles from both New York and San Francisco. But what this point has that the other one doesn't is a collection of barbed wire impressive isn't it. It also has a train and a Sod House whatever one of those is (we couldn't check as like most other places on our trip it was closed). We didn't hang around too long as it was still only just above freezing.

Next we visited Dodge City and Boot Hill. Again I'm sure if it had been tourist season it would have been packed, but we were the only car in the carpark and it was closed. We decided at that point to get the hell out of Dodge and head south in search of warmth.

Throughout the last couple of days whilst in Kansas we'd been making constant references to the Wizard of Oz and Dorothy (see previous blogs and Facebook Statuses), well we hit gold just as we were leaving Kansas. We found ourselves in the town of Liberal, and we entered the town we saw something on a billboard referring to Dorothy but just ignored it, however just across the next intersection we saw something off to the right and had to stop. It was a Wizard of Oz theme park (check out the pictures in the road trip section for some corkers). We even saw someone duck in and out of a building dressed as Dorothy, ruby slippers and everything. It must have been open, but being tight on time and pocket we decided to head on and leave Kansas behind, as we crossed the border we all said "we're not in Kansas anymore", ok so only Rag and I did, but the spirit was there.

Next we hit Oklahoma (where the wind comes sweeping down the plains apparently) Ok so we only hit the pan handle of Oklahoma, but enough time to see a Hooker and drive through the inspirationally named Texhoma which is on the border between Texas and Oklahoma so goodness only knows why they named it that.

In Texas our first point of call was Amarillo - cue the Tony Christie song. Actually we found Cadillac ranch just outside first, which is just 10 Cadillac cars buried into the ground on a ranch just outside of town. Another free attraction and another pointless piece of Americana.

We have now holed up in a motel just down the road from the Big Texan steakhouse, I think we are all going to wimp out on the 72oz steak challenge, but if the boys make it back in one piece after their buckets of beer I'll let you know how we got on.

Well as you can tell, we all made it out alive this morning. In fact the wind had died down by midnight and we got a relatively decent night's sleep, well apart from Ivan who was paranoid and when he heard a noise in the bathroom in the night almost crapped himself.

Speaking to rag this morning I may have got my facts wrong about the two folks on reception last night, they may have been brother and sister, not husband and wife, but then again around those parts, that could have been one in the same thing.

I must say the hotel was a bit dodgy, I felt dirtier after getting out of the shower than when I first got it in.

I have some advice if you ever come to see Cawker's biggest ball of twine, don't stay at the Waconda Motel. It is like a relic from the 60's that hasn't been updated. Look at the sign that was in my room

Actually my advice is to go and see the string ball in Minnesota, at least it is in a gazebo.

Today was one of those ROAD TRIP days, lots of miles with few breaks. In fact we racked up 4 new states and over 630 miles today and only stopped as we were tired. That said as we have all holed up in the Waconda Motel in Beloit Kansas we are beginning to question that decision.

Our plan was always to end up either in Southern Nebraska or Northern Kansas tonight so in some respects we did what we set out to achieve. We started early knowing that we’d be on the road for a while and coincidentally passed our 2,000th mile in the caravan driving past a place called Nevada in Missouri quite early on in the day, I wonder what the final mileage will be when we drop the caravan off (if it makes it that far). Apart from a couple of quick stops to either refuel the car or ourselves (in fact we munched lunch in Mound City MO) we ploughed on through Missouri and into Iowa not even pausing for one of our now infamous tripod moments in front of an obscure place name. We did pass a few and hopefully Rag will have posted those pictures in the road trip section.

Our visit to Iowa was brief, very brief, if we were there for more than 10 minutes I’d be surprised, again no tripod moment, but we’d visited Iowa all the same. It was as we were crossing the border that we first started to see the remnants of snow, and this was also the case as we crossed into Nebraska. In fact the only other real evidence of any “proper” weather was the damage we’d seen to some of the trees in the Ozarks, but we weren’t too sure what had caused those.

As we were making good progress through Nebraska and had no tripod moment planned we decided to plough on into Kansas for our scheduled stops. However before leaving Nebraska we did spot the winner of the billboard for stating the bleeding obvious (hopefully you’ll work out which one I mean from those pictures posted for today). We needed fuel and were beginning to think about places to stay once we got across into Kansas and found a town called Mankato. It had a proper old fashioned cobbled main street and everything. What did concern us slightly was the sign outside of Bob’s bar that said “no guns allowed inside”, but as we’d been downtown in Memphis, a small bar in Kansas was child’s play.

Next stop was a place just outside Lebanon (no not THAT Lebanon) but one in Northern Kansas that boasts to be the geographical centre of mainland USA. For such a location it was surprising that there were no tacky souvenir stands or anyone charging you to be there, but no, all that was there was a small stone monument and an even smaller church (maybe someone has been reading my previous blogs) Time for a quick tripod moment as it was starting to get cold, especially in the wind. This monument was about two mile north of the town of Lebanon which was a good thing as the town itself looked about as ravaged as it’s namesake in the Middle East.

As there was nowhere to stay in Lebanon we did the only thing we could which was head for our next scheduled tripod moment in the town of Cawker City. This town boasts the biggest ball of twine record. Now if you were to believe the Weird Al song (look it up on You Tube), this is in Minnesota, but apparently the Minnesota twine ball is the largest created by one person, this one in Cawker was started by one person trying to break the record, but when he died he was so close the townsfolk decided to continue his work and have an annual event where they add further twine. Again, blink and you’d have missed it, this time there was a tacky souvenir shop but it was across the road and closed, but the ball itself was free to view, result.



Again nowhere to stay in Cawker so we took a quick look at the map and plumped for Salina as it looked pretty big, problem was that it was 50 miles away in the wrong direction from our next stop and we’d been on the road for 11 hours at this point but we had no choice. That was until we hit the next town, Beloit, we’d seen a billboard for a Motel 8 (one of the many cheap chain motels) but as we entered the town we spotted an independent motel, the Waconda. It looked ok from the outside but before going in we took a quick scoot up the main street to try and find a bar and somewhere to eat. We found eateries but a bar was less forthcoming but by this stage we were so tired we didn’t care.

When the guys went to check in they asked the guy if there was a bar in the town he said yes but when his wife came to the desk she didn’t think there was so we left them arguing as we went to find our rooms. Interesting is the best word I could use, bloody awful are two more, but by this stage it was blowing a gale and we just wanted to get out of the wind. However we still needed to find food and beer so we ventured out to the local supermarket whilst trying not to get blown off our feet only to find it didn’t sell beer, so found a garage that did (over priced of course). Next was food and we ended up at Sonic burger. If you’ve never been it’s like the restaurant in the opening titles of the Flintstones, a bit like a drive through except you park. I.e. you park in your bay, order through a microphone, swipe your card to pay and then they bring it out to your car for you (admittedly not on roller skates, but it was a good job in this weather or they may have been blown back into Nebraska). We decided to eat back in the motel so we skulked back and ate a god awful burger whilst all looking miserably at each other. An early night was on the cards, but with an early start also (weather permitting) as we don’t want to stay here any longer than we have to. Another lesson to learn.

Tomorrow may bring two more states or pneumonia if I can’t get this room to warm up any more. It may also bring further car issues as it is now saying it needs an oil change, it can beep all it likes, I’m not paying for it.