East to Little Rock

We're in Little Rock at the present time. I waited until tonight to start this blog because yesterday was really uneventful. But I will cover everything in this post starting from the time we left Santa Fe.

We were planning to leave Santa Fe around noon on Friday but Thomas was at work and some meetings lasted longer than usual. He actually didn't get home until around 2:30pm. Then his brother, Bob, showed up. We spent a little time visiting with him. But before we finished our visit with him Thomas' friend Bruce showed to pick usome things up. Now you realize that the car has been loaded and I had everything ready to go by 11:00am. By the time everyone left and we got in the car it was 5:00pm. Once on the road we decided to to try and make it to Amarillo for the night. We stopped in Tucumcari for some dinner and a little stretch break and then continued our journey. We arrived in Amarillo, stopped for some coffee and decided that we could drive a little further. We reached Shamrock, Texas and made the decision to rest here for the night. We took the exit and it put us on Route 66. We passed this great little cafe with all this neon - just the thing you would expect on the Mother Road. We found a hotel and checked in. A shower and straight to bed (that's another reason I didn't post yesterday - too tired).
This morning we were up at 6:00am and on our way before sunrise. We found our first letterbox of the trip (well actually two letterboxes) by 7:00am. These were in Shamrock, TX - Slow Elk and Texas 66 by Beneficus Rex. Both were nice carvings and it was a great way to start the day. We didn't stop again until we had crossed over in Oklahoma. The next box we found was one of Azroadie's Route 66 boxes - Sayre 66 - I love his boxes. His carvings are so precise. After stamping in and rehiding the box we hit the road again. Since we got a late start yesterday we had to make a decision about time (we have to be in the Baton Rouge area by Wednesday morning and we have some things to do before that). We abandoned plans to letterbox along the way to Oklahoma City and we didn't stop until we arrived there. We actually stopped just outside of OKC in Yukon. We found the Chisholm Trail Park but unfortunately we didn't find the letterbox. We headed into OKC and turned off on a little gravel road to look for another box. Another empty handed trip. Then another little park and empty handed again. Are you getting the picture. Thomas decided to pull into a gas station and fill up the car and I read through the rest of the OKC clues. Almost all of the boxes in Oklahoma City were last found aound a year ago. There were only a few found in May, June or July of this year. None more recent than that. So we tried to be optimistic and went in search of another box - again empty handed. At this point we decided to abandon letterboxing and do some sightseeing. Oh and I forgot, can you guess what was happening in the car once we crossed over into OKLAHOMA. Imagine if you will two men tired from a late night of driving and getting little sleep the night before and frustrated from not finding letterboxes singing show tunes - how can you not sing 'OKLAHOMA'!

Oklahoma, where the wind comes sweepin' down the plain
And the wavin' wheat can sure smell sweet
When the wind comes right behind the rain.
Oklahoma, Ev'ry night my honey lamb and I Sit alone and talk and watch a hawk
Makin' lazy circles in the sky.

Okay you can get that imagine out of your head - it really wasn't pretty. I wanted to visit the Oklahoma City Capitol Building (I am a big geek when it comes to Capitol Buildings - I love them) and Thomas wanted to see the Oklahoma City Memorial. The Capitol is fantastic - an old elegant structure that I thought was beautiful. Unfortunately we couldn't get inside but we walked around the outside and enjoyed it just the same. From here we drove the few blocks to the Oklahoma City Bombing Site. They have a wonderful Memorial to this event and the people that lost their lives.
It was amazing how vivid my memory was of the day this happened - I don't think I could actually have told you the date that this happened before visiting the Memorial today but I remember where I was and what I was doing at the time I heard about it. We walked around and talked with one of the Rangers and just enjoyed the wonderfulness of this site. At this point we realize that if we wanted to get to Little Rock at a decent hour we really needed to put the pedal to the metal. Looking at other letterboxes in Oklahoma it was clear that we would leave that state with only one find. All the others from Oklahoma City to the Arkansas border were either too far off the interstate or too far of hikes - so we didn't stop until we crossed the border. Another sidebar, if you don't mind humoring me - Oklahomans really love their famous sons and daughters. We saw signs the entire way across Oklahoma of cities boasting of their famous hometown heros . . .

Elk City - Justin McBride (Two time world champion bull rider)
Elk City - Susan Powell (Miss America 1981)
Yukon - Garth Brooks (Country singer)
Henryette - Troy Aikman (Football star)
McAlester - Reba McIntyre (Country singer)
Checotah - Carrie Underwood (American Idol winner 2005)

We've crossed over into Arkansas and our destination is Van Buren. The first letterbox we looked for we didn't find. I think we were in the right spot and the box may very well be there - it was just so overgrown we were unable to really get in there to look for it. But our next four in Van Buren were winners - we found one at Lake Lou Emma, one at the Historic Train Depot in downtown and two out at Dr. Louis Peer Memorial Park. At this point time was slipping away from us and I wanted to get one more box in Alma before heading to Little Rock. Alma, AR is the 'Spinach Capital of the World' or something like that. So NacTrailCat placed a box in the Alma Cemetery to honor our spinach loving hero - that's right -Popeye (one of my all time favorite cartoon characters). Alma must also love him because his image was on a lot of buildings and there is even a fountain with an eight foot statue of Popeye in downtown. We had a great time there and NacTrailCat did a great job with the stamp. So from here on out it was just continuous driving until we reached Little Rock and checked into the hotel. So we drove 370 miles yesterday and 503 miles today - we are both tired. Today was a hot and humid day and that really drained us and adding in all the miles we have covered - we are beat. Hopefully we can be fresh and rested for the next leg of our journey.