We put Norman in our rearview mirror the day after Thanksgiving. We hated having to leave so suddenly after the holiday, but we had to hit the road if we wanted to make it to Boise in time for Christmas. We had a lot of ground to cover and just a few weeks to get it done so time was of the essence. Considering this, we decided to knock out a big chunk of the journey early on and book it over to Flagstaff, Arizona. However, we couldn’t make it to Flagstaff in just one day, so we opted to stop over in New Mexico for a single evening. After examining the map, we settled on Tucumcari as a good halfway point between Flagstaff and Norman.
The trip out to Tucumcari was a long, boring drive through the middle of nowhere. To make matters worse, we were driving right into a stiff headwind which caused our fuel milage to plummet. Over the course of our travels, I’ve become absorbed with monitoring our gas milage between campgrounds (Sam would say it’s bordering on obsessiveness). We’ve learned that if we don’t have a direct tailwind behind the trailer, then our efficiency is going to suffer. Even a mild crosswind can knock our gas milage down by 20%!
However, we were fortunate enough to get a brief break from the monotony of the drive when we randomly ran into some friends at a truck stop while driving through the Texas Panhandle. I was filling up the truck when I heard someone yelling “boomer!” behind me. It caught me off guard at first because I wasn’t wearing any OU gear for anyone to get the idea that I was a Sooner fan (plus we have Colorado plates). After a moment of confusion, I was eventually able to discern the source of the chant – my old high school football coach, Clay Speer. We had actually just had dinner with Coach Speer and his family while we were in Norman to discuss the possibility of investing in an RV park together, so that added another wrinkle to this longshot encounter (we decided to put the RV park investment idea on pause for the time being, just didn’t line up with our current plans). In fact, the Speers were on their way out to Cloud Croft, New Mexico to tour the very property that we had discussed a few days before. What are the chances?
Our campground for our single-night stay in Tucumcari was the Blaze-In-Saddle RV Park, located about 5 minutes off I-40. Ultimately, we decided to go with Blaze-In-Saddle due to their convenient location and great price, but I’d be lying if I said the branding wasn’t the first thing that caught my attention – how can you not love that name? The campground ended up working out well and we would recommend it to anyone driving along I-40 in need of a stopover for the night.
We woke up on Saturday morning all ready for the long trip to Flagstaff only to discover that we had been dumped on with snow the night before. The forecast had called for a light dusting of snow, but this was several inches deep and needed to be cleared off the truck/trailer before we could hit the road. It only put us about an hour behind schedule, but because our trip was so long and the days were so short, that meant that we would be setting up in the dark by the time we rolled into Flagstaff. Yuck!