Our Road Trip Across America Part 1

So, the last year has been pretty hectic with books to write and building a house while living three thousand miles away. After earning many frequent flier miles, we managed to sell our house in Tennessee the first week it was listed. That was the good news. The bad news was that before the house could close, it was hammered by those storms that swept through the south the last week of April.

However, with contractors lined up to fix the roof, windows, doors, decks, and many other things, we waved goodbye to our stuff, which had been loaded onto a moving van we hoped would arrive in Washington state, packed our three rescued dogs into the motorhome we'd bought for the trip, and began our drive across ten states in nine days. A trip that did not include going to Chicago but the above picture comes pretty close to how adventurous we were feeling.

The first thing I did was hang my stained glass grasshopper, which is usually hanging in my office, in the passenger window. Although I know other people who have more exciting personal totems, like lions, or tigers, or wolves, the grasshopper works for me because grasshoppers are always jumping up and forward. Which I believe is a good life goal. Except for some flooding in west Tennessee and Arkansas, the drive across those two states was uneventful.

Then, when we reached Oklahoma, the trip began to get interesting.

I love the way the rest stops created this teepee look over their picnic tables.



Although we've enjoyed Oklahoma City when we've stayed there in the past, because of huge black thunderheads and tornado warnings, we stopped a few miles east of the city, out in the country, where we had a unique neighbor. Shadow, Toby, and Jessie didn't know what to make of him, but this bull remained totally unimpressed by them. Seconds after I took this picture, a huge storm hit, with hard rain, motorhome-rocking wind, but thankfully no tornado.


Oklahoma wasn't the windiest state we passed through on our way to our new home. But, although this photo stopped the action, the electric-generating wind turbines were definitely turning.



I really enjoyed the informational signs Oklahoma posted along the highway. Without this one, I never would've known that the state was where the ubiquitous shopping cart was invented! (Click on the photo to read more clearly.)



This was definitely a lonesome road on the way to Texas. Where things got a little crazy and we discovered that it's true. . . everything IS bigger in the Lone Star State!



To be continued next Tuesday. . .