En Route to GCNP - Tucumcari, NM

It's a long way to Grand Canyon from Fredericksburg. We left home one week ago today - and have finally made it to New Mexico. The drive today took about 10 hours: mostly for two reasons. The first reason was that we decided we would like to see some sights on the way. Our first stop was in Weatherford, OK. Weatherford is home to General Thomas P Stafford. Gen Stafford was an Air Force Ace pilot and NASA astronaut. We visited the Stafford Air and Space Museum spending about an hour learning about Gen Stafford's career and viewing vintage aircraft, spacecraft, and launch boosters. It was a very well done museum.

Our second stop along I-40 and historic US Route 66 was at the Route 66 Museum in Elk City OK. After lunch we spent about 30 minutes walking through artifacts from the Mother Road (Route 66) including vintage motorcycles, automobiles, and other transportation related items. The buildings of the museum were built to reflect the hey day of this historic road.

Stay tuned for photos from both of the museums we visited today.

After Elk City, we crossed from Oklahoma into the Texas Panhandle and passed through Amarillo. Our timing could not have been worse. A heavy rain storm had just finished as we entered town at the height of their evening rush. There were flash flood warnings issued. We saw many vehicles being driven through at least a foot of water. We had to squeeze way to the far left lane (along with everyone else) to avoid the flooded right two lanes of I-40. Not more than a half mile further down the highway, a flood in a low area caused authorities to close the road and divert all traffic onto the parallel service road. It took us about an hour to go 1 mile and to get around the flooded area.

We finally arrived in Tucumcari, NM at the Tucumcari KOA just east of Tucumcari. While not as nice as last night's campground in OK City, this one has its good points. One is the beautiful view from the back of the campground. Another is that it is far enough from the highway that noise is not an issue. We have side-by-side sites meaning our rig is awning to awning to our friend's rig and we share a "back yard" area. The down side of this is that the rig on the other side of us is about 10 feet away. Here is a photo of the campsites and one of the view.

To flash back to our several days at Cedars of Lebanon, here are some photos from Nashville. The next photo is the grave site of General Thomas Jackson, 7th President of the US at his home near Nashville.

We had lunch at the Acquarium - dining with the fishes. Here you see the large acquarium with dining tables around the central tank.

Finally, at Madame Tussands, we ran into the Million Dollar Quartet: Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis and Elvis Presley.