Day 5 - Amarillo, TX to Fort Smith, AR

I apologize to anyone who is a fan of Oklahoma but lord that was a boring state to drive through... The most exciting thing to discover was that the rest areas there are the nicest we've seen so far. (TX was slightly ahead because theirs have WiFi, but OK's were clean, the people working in them were really nice and friendly, and they were beautifully decorated.)

We've been having an unofficial count of these rest areas through the drive and so far the count is:

California: -5 Unheated? In areas where there is snow on the ground? Clearly, decisions made by people who don't usually sit to use the facilities! One of them said "Tourist information" on the sign and when we stopped (looking for hotel coupon books), all we found for "tourist information" was a map pinned to the wall behind glass.

Arizona: 0 Pretty to look at. Essentially average. Good selection of vending machines.

New Mexico: -10 Heated by a 30-year-old space heater hung on the wall, dirty, one step above chemical toilets, and no vending machines. They had little voting charts on the door that said "We approve this stop Y/N" but we didn't vote.

Texas: +5 for really, really clean even when unmanned, fun decor, good selection of vending machines and had WiFi.

Oklahoma: +10 for everything TX had (ok, the first one didn't have WiFi, but the one in Oklahoma City did), plus free coffee & tea for visitors (one of the staff gave me a tea bag from his own personal stash, not the kind usually available to visitors). Also the only one where almost every stop had people working in them.

Today was the first day we made it all the way through a state; 441 miles from Amarillo to Fort Smith. We also finished listening to Arrows of the Queen, which I had to listen to while in Oklahoma, since that's where Mercedes Lackey lives.

Not taken by us. We went by it
quickly at night so our picture
came out blurry. Also, since Beth
is asleep and it's on her camera,
I cheated and grabbed one off
Google.

Arkansas is the third state we've driven in that I'd never been to before, not even so much as an airport. New Mexico and Oklahoma were the other two. Tomorrow, we hit Tennessee, where we're stopping early and visiting with a gentleman who used to work for both of us when we were editors of the a cappella magazine, and was one of my regional assistants when I ran the a cappella competition.

Speaking of: I had a small world moment tonight when I was downstairs at the front desk. Chatting with a guest checking in, it came up that I'd moved to the U.S. "to run a college music competition." He asked which one. I told him. Turns out he was at the show at Southwest Missouri State that I produced eight years ago, and even vaguely remembered me announcing the winners at the end of the night. Another moment of "I really can't get away from that life." :)