A Time To Laugh: America the Beautiful

O beautiful for spacious skies,

For amber waves of grain,

For purple mountain majesties

Above the fruited plain!

America! America!

God shed his grace on thee

And crown thy good with brotherhood

From sea to shining sea!

O beautiful for pilgrim feet

Whose stern impassioned stress

A thoroughfare of freedom beat

Across the wilderness!

America! America!

God mend thine every flaw,

Confirm thy soul in self-control,

Thy liberty in law!

In the past month, I have been in 11 of the 50 states and Allen has been in 10. Allen and I joined his parents and sister in a whirlwind 4000 mile tour of the west, and then my mom, sister, and brothers joined me in exploring Indiana and Kentucky:

I plan to post about all of our vacation adventures during the next few days, so stay tuned for the stories. ;)

(Our DRIVING route. We're hard-core, we know ;)

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Allen and I started our journey on June 23rd. He got off work early and we drove straight home to Arkansas.

Its a 10 hour drive and its the only time we have ever done it without Pepsi in our laps. She spent the vacation having a blast with Sarah Sanders and her family. I really hated to leave her, but she loved visiting and the sooner we get her a backyard the better. She couldn't have been happier.

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Making it to Arkansas felt good and after spending the morning of the 24th with my family, we headed off at about 9AM to the West.

And

made

10 miles

BLOWOUT on the camper.

Luckily, Allen and Terry are expert tire changers and they had ours fixed in no time...but while we were sitting on the side of the road....SOMEONE ELSE'S TIRE BLEW and they ended up not 20 feet in front of us! It was two ladies all alone. So, Allen and Terry, being the gentlemen they are, also changed her tire. We decided there must have been something in the road and went along our merry way. We also got to visit both the Sam's Club and Walmart in Fayetteville Arkansas in search of a replacement for our spare. As you will see: our vacation soon becomes somewhat of a country wide WalMart tour......

Two hours after we meant to, we finally left the Natural State and headed off into Oklahoma where we saw our only wildfire. Most of the others were well south of our route.

We stopped for the night in Elk City, Oklahoma at the KOA and quickly decided the wind outside felt like a hair dryer. It was SO HOT! But, they had a pool and we had an air conditioned camper. Day one was a success despite some obstacles.

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Day two found us on our way to Amarillo, TX and the home of the FREE 72 oz steak!

Its about 150 miles from Elk City to Amarillo and on the 100th...............................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................BAM!!!!!!!THUD...THUD...THUD....THUD..............You guessed it...another blow-out. :<

Now the first blow-out wasn't so bad. Remember, we had only driven 10 miles. By this time we had driven about 400. We were hot and tired and this was just depressing...in a funny sort of way. You have to laugh so you won't cry right?

Apparently, the grass in TX is not very friendly. They both had scratches all over them.

I was just glad they didn't find any rattlesnakes.

What can you do?

Needless to say, we were hungry by the time we arrived in Amarillo and made our way to the Big Texan. Its quite a show in there. We watched some poor kid try to beat the challenge and wondered how much he had to pay in money and pain for his dinner when he didn't finish.

They make you sit all alone up on this stage and you not only have to eat the steak, but also the shrimp cocktail, baked potato, salad, roll, and butter as well!! We decided that the poor kid who was trying drank entirely too much tea while he ate. He tried hard and probably ate 2/3 of the steak, but didn't even come close to finishing.

Our dinner on the other hand, was finished, and though it was much less exciting, it also didn't leave us sick for days. Terry and I had the ribeye, Laura and Allen had the prime rib, and Jenae, in true southern style opted for the chicken fried steak. 8 oz was plenty of red meat for us and we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.

After our meal at the Big Texan we toured the local WalMart (again) in search of another replacement spare tire. This trip was not fast and it took them 3 hours :< to mount our tire. Of that, we spent about an hour in the WalMart itself (told you we toured it) and then went to the visitors center where we learned that we MUST visit Cadillac Ranch on our way out of town and also that we should buy spray paint from WalMart in order to put our own artistic touch on the piece.

Allen was EXCITED! (He studied Cadillac Ranch in college)

(we bought Red and White spray paint in honor of the Hogs. Especially since we were in Texas!)

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Hwy 40 Exit 60: Cadillac Ranch

(Context: Around 105 degrees, wind around 30 mph - clear as a bell and perfect for pictures)

Jenae and I wrote "Arkansas Razorbacks" of course and Allen first drew bull's eyes. However, in true Allen form, the genius decided to be different ;)

Everyone else has been adding to this sculpture for 40 years, so Allen decided to subtract:

He dug all the way to the original paint and then again in true Allen fashion, painted it over with white, so that no one else could see his discovery ;)

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That night we made it to Tucumcari, NM. We were exhausted, but happy with our progress and experiences.

Tomorrow or the next day, I will post more of our adventures. Stay tuned!!