Amarillo to Little Rock

All I can say is that I miss the West already. I think we all do. The further we drive east the hotter and more humid it becomes. I'm just not cracked up for this!

It was a long day of driving today, but not our longest so far. Fortunately, the last two legs of our trip will be progressively shorter—but unfortunately hotter and more humid.

I had the first shift of driving today. Somewhere in Texas between Amarillo and Ft. Smith, while all of my passengers were taking their morning naps, I saw the "world's largest" crucifix not farther than 100 yards from the eastbound land of I-40. It must have been close to 200 feet tall. Very ominous and kind of creepy. It looked to be part of a partially built octagonal Christian church of some micro-denomination of which I can neither recall nor have ever heard of. Seems they spent all their money on the giant cross and ran out of money for the actual church. Makes you wonder.

Further east we saw a very large wind farm—each turbine about the size of the giant cross. There must have been at least 100 of the them and they stretched on for 10 miles or so. It was nice to see these among all of the oil wells that we saw. They look a lot nicer too.

I'd have to say that besides the giant cross and the the wind farm and learning that Oklahoma has mountains (!), today's highlight was our brief stop at the National Memorial at Oklahoma City. It was very moving to be there (and hot). I really loved the design of the memorial.

Tonight, Sidney and Samuel went swimming in the luke-warm water of our campground's pool. The rest of us drank whatever alcohol we had left, grilled hamburgers, and I made another mess of cowboy beans. The air is filled with the sound of cars on the nearby freeway and the roar of chirping insects in the surrounding trees.

Tomorrow we reach for Crossville, Tennessee. Our current plan is to stop in Memphis for a quick look around and lunch at Neely's Bar-B-Cue. In Nashville, we'd like to go by our old house in River Ridge that we haven't seen since 1987. Hopefully, it is still there after the recent flooding. We'd also like to show the kids around Music Row, the Ryman Auditorium, Ernest Tubb Record Shop, and maybe the Loveless Cafe. We'll see how much we can accomplish given the time we have left.