July 20

It's been a long day for the Anderson family. We left Texarkana, Texas around 7:15 this morning and made it to Carlsbad, New Mexico around 7:30 tonight. With the time change that made for a 13 hour day on the road. Once we got past Fort Worth there was a whole lot of open space to see. One interesting spot along the way was Sweetwater, Texas. Sweetwater is the wind energy capital of the US, and we saw giant windmills for miles upon miles. It was fascinating. If I can figure out how to post pics to my blog I'll attach a picture or two.

We wanted to get a picture of the boys with the Texas sign that is on the main roads into Texas. We didn't see one when we got into Texarkana last night, so we were on the lookout as we neared the Texas/New Mexico border. There it was. Fortunately we were on a lightly traveled road, so there wasn't any problem turning the big rig around and snapping a few shots of the kids with the sign. Glenn has a similar picture from his family RV vacation when he was 11.

The highlight of our day was a trip to Sonic. Don't laugh. Most Americans can go to a Sonic with very little effort. Not so in Howard County, Maryland. It wouldn't be so bad if we didn't get the commercials, but we do. It is like torture to an Oklahoma girl who used to go to Sonic daily in her high school days. As the old adage goes, "You don't know what you got 'til it's gone". I made the most of our trip today. I had, get this, chili cheese tots. That's right, tater tots covered in chili and cheese. It was like a little bit of heaven. We'll have to make a few more trips to Sonic before we end up back in Maryland.

We got to the Carlsbad KOA too late to make it to the pool. I had three sad boys to deal with. Oh well. We're staying here two nights, so hopefully we'll have a chance to swim tomorrow. Our first priority tomorrow is to go to Carlsbad Cavern and then to make it back to the cavern in the evening to see the bats fly out. That should leave us with a few hours to relax in the pool.

So that's about it today. We're beat and I'm ready to get to bed. Tomorrow promises to be interesting. I feel like our vacation will finally be starting in earnest.