White Knuckled

Day two started early with a 5:30 wake-up call at the hotel and a made to order breakfast.  We love Embassy Suites!

We headed southwest to Kansas, Oklahoma and finally to Texas.  It took us a little over nine hours.  Those states had pretty boring scenery, but it is amazing to see all of the wide open spaces.

We stopped to visit the Oklahoma City Memorial site.  Seeing the pictures again after all these years was surreal.  The memorial is on the site of the actual Murrah building and there are chairs placed on the lawn representing all of the lives lost that day.  The buildings that surround the site were left damaged to show the impact of the blast.

Mark has been driving the entire trip so far, but after a gas stop, he asked if I wanted to drive for awhile.  As many of you know, we are driving Mark's mom's van, which I don't drive on a regular basis, but how different could a van be from my truck?  With thirteen miles to the OK/TX border, I took over driving.  Once on the highway, I discovered that there were strong cross winds that were blowing the van all over the road.  It felt as though it was floating above the road as we entered a one lane construction zone with a million orange cones.  I started to get nervous, I was sweating, holding on with a white knuckle grip just trying to keep it on the road.  I told Mark, " I don't think I can do this.  I am scared that we are going to crash!"  In true Mark form, he laughed.  As we approached a bridge under construction, the lane narrowed even more and Mark said, "Sweet, thread the needle!"  He was referring to trying to get the van through a tight space.  At that point I felt a tear come down my cheek.  I did actually make it the rest of the way to the border where we got out to take our "state sign" picture.  Needless to say, I did not get back in the drivers seat and don't plan to for the remainder of the 3800 plus miles!

We made it to Amarillo around 6:30 p.m., had dinner and collapsed into bed by 9:30.  Another long day of driving tomorrow on the way to the Grand Canyon!