Day 2 -Albuquerque, NM to Little Rock, AR

We broke our one-restaurant-a-day rule this AM and had a cheap breakfast at the Denny’s next to our Hotel.

As we drove out of Albuquerque we saw two hot air balloons in flight. In our brief time in that place, I could feel the city has a great vibe to it. It’s hard to describe, but I know it’s a place I could live.

I said in yesterday’s installment that today’s drive would be boring. I humbly take that back.

The Texas panhandle was actually pretty amazing. Hundreds and hundreds of small cotton-like clouds dotted the sky and extended to the horizon in every direction. These are the clouds that make great picture clouds. You know… I see a bunny… I see a puppy… I see the man on the grassy knoll…

We could make out all sorts of pictures that the other could plainly see. We saw a roast chicken, a fish with glasses, Mr Burn’s from “The Simpsons” (I swear, it looked just like him) and yes, we did see several bunnies and puppies. The generic clouds all seemed to look remarkably like roast chickens.

The vastness of the skies and the plains was profound and breathtaking, a sort-of open-face reality sandwich with cloud topping.

There was more bank drama today. We are starting to find this funny (though we’re still totally changing banks)

We were promised by our bank that all our deposits would be available by 7AM this morning. When we checked there was nothing available. I spent my time at this famous Texas landmark on the phone doing battle with the bank while the other half of our party was getting pictures of these…

This is just a phone pic, her real pics will be awesome

The bank apologized and said all would be fixed immediately. We checked. Yup all was good. At the next fuel stop the gas pump said “card denied” on the screen. It’s a kind-of scary feeling when you’re halfway across the country with a quarter tank of gas and a card that isn’t working.

Once again calls to Bangalor, transferred back to Chicago or someplace got me an offering a scripted apologies and more promises that everything will be okay.

So far so good.



Each time this happens it bums us out a little less. By now were shaking our heads and laughing… almost.

There’s good news too!

My CDs are finished and will make it to my parents’ house on-time!

The guy at the company manufacturing my CDs said they were ready to go and would ship today. I had him send a case of one hundred next-day air so I would be sure to have them available for Sunday’s show.

It’s strange to know my CDs are finished in a series of boxes somewhere. I’m not sure how to feel to be honest. I should be elated but I guess it hasn’t hit me yet; perhaps when I have one in my hand.

Oklahoma was beautiful in its own way with bright red clay soil and hundreds if miles of grassy fields spotted with smallish shade trees that made me want to park the car, go sit beneath one of them and think thoughts.

We spend long stretches through Texas and Oklahomalistening to the music of the road. No MP3s necessary. Later, while driving in the dark I scanned the AM dial for ambiance but found mostly static.

In a country convenience store I heard the drawl of the people speaking around me and had to remind myself that they weren't making a joke of pantomiming. That's actually how they talk.

I should mention that every person we’ve encountered has been thoroughly friendly, not in the creepy, ‘have you met Jesus?’ way but the thorough kindness that Jesus was all about in the first place.

We ate dinner at a Waffle House just inside Arkansas. We found ourselves eaves-dropping on a whole community that gathers there and knows each other. We had an ancient waitress that wore face glitter and flirted shamelessly with the remnants of a bachelor party. They were all way to young to be giving bachelor parties from one of their own.

Another waitress who had a funky cool hair cut and dye job finished her shift and sat at the counter and texted continuously. After her took off her uniform top her pink tank top showed an obvious thumb bruise on her upper arm.

Now we find ourselves near Little Rock, Arkansas. We made the decision to go back to our originally planned route through Memphis, Tennessee and up through to West Viginia. I felt at first after loosing a whole day that it would be impossible to take this route but after our progress so far, we think we’ll get to my parent’s on Saturday, no problem.

I’m not sure what Arkansas looks like. We’ve only seen it in the dark so far.

Reports call for light tomorrow sooo…