Day 3

Palo Duro Canyon, Texas to Sedona, Arizona

630 miles logged

Woke up to maybe the most beautiful sky over the canyon I have ever seen. 

 

We started E-learning bright and early with the girls; however, the only available wifi is on my iPhone hotspot.  Of course they have also adjusted the schedules again and need us to print off a 2nd grade math assessment. What? It is the week before Christmas. E-learning is more stressful than driving through a snow storm in Texas.

After a long morning of E-learning and more Cheerios and Starbucks, we are making the decision to hit the road. The weather is just too cold here at the Canyon so we are attempting to make our way to Sedona, Arizona where we will be staying for a few nights. Thankful for a break from driving.

 Making our way to Sedona, it seems like the entire state of New Mexico is closed due to the Coronavirus.  We have another 9 hours ahead of us and we are hitting the road a little later than expected. Departure: 10:30 am.  

We entered New Mexico early on our drive.  You can see the remains of Route 66 ever present in its landscape.  I can only imagine what it was like to travel in the days of 66, which, in the 50s and 60s, was the only route cross country that you could travel by car.  I wonder how both important and grande it felt to be traveling in style, heading out to the coasts; a trip not made by every Tom, Dick, and Harry. I always wonder what it was like to live life in that time. Was it really a simpler time? Or was it just as stressful as 2020 but with different stresses? 

While traveling with Smokey and the Bandit (what we coined our truck and airstream) was supposed to be the simpler version of travel this year, a trip where we could make our own journey, keep socially distant, and still see the country, it has not been without it’s share of troubles. Cold ass weather, a closed RV park, and now another long day in the car.

As the Waze travel clock ticks by at the speed of molasses, the temperature moves up with it. This is great news for Eva as she did not even pack a coat that fits and never would have survived Palo Duro making it easier to convince myself that we left earlier for her health and safety. Pre-teens and E-learning might just be the death of me.

Staring at the Waze clock a little more, I wonder if those stylish travelers of the 50s on Route 66 were thinking the same as I am now: ARE WE THERE YET?