Oklahoma Wins!

We have returned from our vacation in California and Nevada. We had a wonderful time. 

I love spending time with my cousins and we were able to spend a real nice evening with my favorite Aunt Sally, who is well into her 80's. 

Camping at Mt. Madonna County Park with Rickey and Robert is always a relaxing and fun week, full of camp fires, amazing meals, family, newly made friends and lots of laughter. 

The second leg of our trip, we found a really nice RV park in Carson City, NV where we spent another 5 days just a short driving distance from Mike and Kathy and our delightful grandgirls. 

Oh. But the traveling. 

Yesterday on our way home from Tucumcari, NM to Conway, AR, an eleven hour drive (only because neither of us could tolerate those hours divided up into small 3-to-4 hour increments) we reached a monumental conclusion. Bear with me. 

We have driven through 26 states in the last few years, some of which have been in an SUV pulling a travel trailer and some of which has been in our motor home. No matter the mode of transportation, there is one state that, hands down, wins the "Best Roads Award" so far: New Mexico. Not only do they maintain their roads so beautifully, but they make an attempt (and succeed) to make the exits, overpasses and medians attractive.....even beautiful. 

The worst: Oklahoma wins! Driving I-40 through Oklahome was like 6 hours of someone hitting my body with a baseball bat repeatedly. It was so bad, at one point another driver motioned to us about something amiss at the front of our motor home. We pulled over, Tom proceeded to check it out and found that the constant bumps, pot holes, tar strips, cracks and basic lack of any kind of maintenance had caused the hood over the engine to come loose from it's brackets and was flapping open. 

But it's good to be home. It's fairly quiet. I no longer feel Ike I'm still moving even when I'm sitting still. That's definitely a plus.