Thursday, June 8, 2017, Trip to Amarillo, TX

Yesterday we began our day with a stop at Smith's (equivalent to a Kroger in the south) to fuel up. Somehow we collected more than 500 points meaning we paid $1.869/gal for our first 35 gallons of diesel. ChaChing! After filling up, I checked our log and found our running average over the last 19,716 miles has been 8.44 miles per gallon - I'm pretty happy with that.

We drove 186.1 miles (82,562.7 miles total) to a Flying J where Joani planned an overnight stay. It wasn't a long drive, but we discovered that Albuquerque sits in a deep basin. Traveling east on I-40 was an uphill climb for 30 miles. It was just a bit nerve-wracking watching the temperature gauge, hoping I could keep the engine from overheating by managing the RPM with gear selection and speed. When we finally made it to the top with no alarms, we found ourselves on a fairly level plateau for the remainder of our drive.

It was pretty early when we reached the Flying J Travel Plaza, so we found a front row slot on the RV side for a change instead of snuggling in with the big rigs. Amarillo was still more than a hundred miles away and I was happy for the break. The Denny's had several good selections that we enjoyed for an early dinner. It was a little warm in the parking area, so I had the opportunity to exercise our generator for a few hours to run the A/C. In the morning we returned to Denny's for breakfast before hitting the road again.

We arrived at the Amarillo Ranch RV Park in Texas pretty early after a short, uneventful drive of 115.5 miles (82,678.2 miles total). We probably would have been too early, but crossing into the Central time zone added an hour to our trip time.

This appears to be a really nice park with a heated pool and spa, two dog runs, large sites, full hook-ups and HD digital cable.  I might not see much cable though since we will be busy for the next week. Amarillo has just about as many attractions as we just explored in Albuquerque, NM.

Later in the evening, we were treated to a real Texas welcome with a thunderstorm complete with marble-sized hail. Sam was not pleased and after the downpour finished there was a lightning show - he did not like that either. It could have been the special effects from some science fiction movie the way the lightning jumped from cloud to cloud in one localized area to the south. I did not do it justice in the picture below.