Road Trippin' - Day Three

Day 3 of this fantastical road trip started off in Amarillo, Texas. This day was going to be a long haul day to Flagstaff, Arizona...about 10 hours or so, 2 stateline crossings and 2 time zones. The husband and I were honestly quite happy that the kiddos didn't have the concept of "sleep-in-past-7-am" down. We were able to chow on some hotel breakfast grub and load up the car by 7:00am. I-40 is definitely the way to go. Previously, every cross-country trip that we have taken has been along I-10. Let me tell you, if I had to drive between El Paso and San Antonio one more time, I don't know that we would have even attempted to do this trip. I-10 is very deserty, very brown and more boring that driving through corn fields in Iowa. I do not exaggerate on this. I-40 is actually kind of pretty. It's hilly, mountainous at times, green-ish and there are even a few canyons when you cross into Arizona. However, the only downfall is that there is also a LOT of livestock along this route in Texas. Lots of livestock = lots of methane = lots of stankiness. We had made a quick pit stop and the boy quipped, "It smells like bird poop." #1 - It smelled like cow poop. But at this juncture, it didn't matter. #2 - I don't want to know how my son knows what bird poop smells like.

We made it in to Flagstaff relatively early - about an hour before dinnertime. We were tired of supporting McDonald's stock at this point, so we decided to try and figure out a place that would be semi-fast and semi-good for the kiddos. What kind of place fits this bill? You guessed it. Sizzler. We didn't even know if they still existed. Yes. The rubber cheese is still rubbery. Yes. There was even a graduation party being held there. And yes, we were that ghetto. But not nearly as ghetto as what was happening back at our hotel.

We were staying at the Holiday Inn Express. Not because we really wanted to, but because there was nothing else available. Me, being Ms. Super McSmarty Smartpants, procrastinated so much on my homework that I had 3 papers to write in a matter of 36 hours. I didn't feel like torturing the husband or kiddos with the light from the laptop or the incessant clacking of my fingers typing furiously on the keyboard, so I decided to go down to the lobby to write my papers. Wrong idea. It was the NBA Finals and there were about 20 people watching it in the eating are. Accompanying the peeps were about 10 bottles of wine, 60 bottles of beer, and about 5 pizzas. Essentially, it was like a frat party in the lobby of the Holiday Inn. 3 hours and many f-bomb laden tirades (not mine) later, the papers were written and thus began Day 4.