“Good morning. Good morning. Good morning.” Some robotic alarm woke us up super early at 5:15 am. I walked over to the phone in the kitchen to turn it off when it stopped suddenly. What a relief – back to bed….Until 6:15, when we were woken up by my uncle and their 2 dogs, panting and running around the kitchen next to the couches where we were sleeping. We attempted to go back to sleep until the 7 am alarm we had set, but with little success. We were motivated to get up when my aunt Lynn served us a delicious home-cooked breakfast of homemade challah French toast, bacon, coffee, strawberries and raspberries. This was the first home-cooked meal we had since we left my house in New Rochelle on August 26. That made an already incredible meal that much better.

Day 22 was a big drive. Our route was Dallas to Oklahoma City, Oklahoma in order to catch Route 66 and take that all the way west to Albuquerque. Without stopping it was a 10 ½ hour drive, but in total it took us about 14 hours. The drive to OKC was easy despite some commuter traffic around Dallas that morning. We stopped at the bombing memorial in OKC from 11:45 – 12:15. It was a beautiful memorial with a lot of meaning. It had happened 20 years ago but still loomed over the city’s history. The Field of Empty Chairs that had 168 empty chairs to represent those that passed away in the terrorist attack as well as the fences in front of the memorial’s entrance decorated with personal memorabilia of the victims of the attack were the most poignant of the memorial site.

[huge_it_gallery id=”27″]

Here’s a rundown of our long journey on Route 66:

• LAND! Lots of wide, open spaces
• Enormous windmills
• Cattle
• Some of the most beautiful skies and sunsets we’re ever seen
• A time change from central to mountain time in Adrian, Texas (the clock went back an hour from 5:48 pm to 4:48 pm, giving us an extra hour)
• Historic Route 66 (the original path, adjacent to the more modern reincarnation) through Tucumcari, New Mexico, full of closed businesses and run down stores
• Blue Hole in Santa Rosa, New Mexico – perhaps the bluest water we’ve seen in America and a natural landmark (it was super cold but we went swimming in it anyway)

And we can’t forget the food along the way:

• Adamo’s Italian Villa – Clinton, Oklahoma. It was practically deserted but they had pretty good food. I got the chicken aristocrat, which was chicken and eggplant in a tomato cream sauce, accompanied by vegatables and pasta. Very nice.
• Braum’s ice cream – they had a lot of good flavors and prided themselves on their dairy quality, but the service was awful so we left before ordering anything

We arrived in Albuquerque, New Mexico around 8:45. We drove through some of downtown and through the college area on the way to Emma Landau’s house. I ran into Emma at the Beechmont Tavern in New Rochelle (NEW RO!!) in December 2014. I told her about my plan to travel cross country, and she said if I was ever in the area to hit her up. Sooooo I did! It was great to see her! ABQ is really relaxed and the weather was great. Her house (or part of a house) had a really cool southwestern feel. Very interesting and different from anybody else’s place we had stayed in.

We hung out for about an hour and a half. She took us to Flying Star Café for dinner. Alex and I shared a slice of pumpkin cheesecake, which was really nice. I had a turkey avocado BLT which was nice but not too heavy. Alex and I were exhausted from traveling all day and getting woken up super early, so we were at the hotel around 10:30. The Super 8 Travelodge was awful, but it was cheap so whatever. We had to get our room changed because the original one smelled awful. The new room, right next door, wasn’t much better. We relaxed and fell asleep in a real bed free of any interruptions. Tomorrow we’re checking out Breaking Bad filming locations in ABQ, then to Santa Fe, and then Denver!!

[huge_it_gallery id=”33″]