Not wanting to see what additional annoyances awaited at the hotel, we left early and had a substantial, medium quality, buffet breakfast at Casey Jones’s Old Country Store. We got on the road and drove almost straight through to Mammoth Cave NP since I had booked a 2:00 pm cave tour. We arrived in time to pick up our tickets, get a campsite, eat lunch, and set up the tent. The cave was nice, but there were more than 100 people on our tour, so it was a bit crowded. About halfway through, we moved to the back of the group, and it was more pleasant, with plenty of opportunities to take pictures. Flash photography was not allowed, so we were stuck with the orange lights.

The campground store had no firewood, so we bought BioBricks instead. “Just don’t get them wet,” said the clerk, in spite of the forecast for thunderstorms. They didn’t work very well, but maybe Dan just needs more practice. We also cooked a simple dinner of macaroni and cheese from our supplies. This campground turned out to be one of the noisiest. I guess people weren’t tired out from hiking like they were at some of the other national parks. Or maybe they’re just inconsiderate RVers, I mean campers.

It was another crappy hotel breakfast. This has to stop! Breakfast is the most important meal of the day, and we’re eating polyester waffles because they are “free” with the room.

We started our day at the William J Clinton Presidential Library. The docent wasn’t the best, but we enjoyed the chronology of his presidency and timeline of world events. They also had a reconstruction of the oval office, an art exhibition, letters to Bill from celebrities, a nice gift shop, and references to evil Republicans and their evil deeds during Clinton’s presidency, pointing out how evil they were. All good fun.

We continued east and stopped at the Tennessee visitor center in Memphis, right over the Mississippi River bridge. Unfortunately, the National Civil Liberties Museum was closed, and Graceland costs $59pp (no free entry with our park pass), so we went to the free Bass Pro Shop & Lodge inside a glass pyramid. Sadly it was not worth the hot and steamy walk to get there. Next we went to the West Tennessee Delta Heritage Center-also free!-in Brownsville. They had several interesting exhibits: Tina Turner’s one room schoolhouse (great costumes, memorabilia, and interpretive history about education), the home of blues legend Sleepy John Estes (new to us, however), and a cotton farming display. The lady in the visitor center sent us to Helen’s BBQ, with its homemade smoker located inside the building (cough!). We ate our BBQ platters outside and signed the guestbook at Helen’s request.

The wi-fi at our hotel in Jackson didn’t work at all, the room itself made noise, and the stupid red message light on the phone wouldn’t stop flashing. They got a bad Trip Advisor review from me!

After another mediocre hotel breakfast, we packed up and drove to the National Route 66 Museum in Elk City. They showed a short movie about the history of automobile roads. In the early years of the 20th century, highways were named routes. In 1925, the federal government numbered them all (like route 66.) Then in 1956, Eisenhower developed the interstates. “Thanks to the Interstate Highway System, it is now possible to travel across the country from coast to coast without seeing anything.” Charles Kuralt.

The most interesting parts of the museum were the old farm equipment and the blacksmith shop. Bob the blacksmith showed us the tools and even demonstrated some. Dan was fascinated by the triphammer, a mechanical hammer used to pound the hot iron into shape. It was a great improvement over doing it by hand.

After the museum we continued east, and the landscape got greener. By the time we reached the Arkansas border, we were at a few hundred feet of elevation. Google sent us to Euphoria Coffee, which sounded good but turned out to be a church. Maybe they’re open on Sundays. We skipped the nearby Starbucks (avoiding McStarbucks has become a point of pride with us over the last two months) in favor of a burger & ice cream shop, but it was unsatisfying.

In Little Rock, we had dinner at Lost Forty, a microbrewery with very good food, beer, and tart cider. The communal seating led us into conversation with Don, a local Arkansan with a Santa Claus beard. He gave us lots of advice on sights to see and places to eat in Arkansas, Tennessee, Kentucky, and West Virginia. We saw on the TV that the Red Sox were 10-1 over NY. Yay!

The long slog home begins! The weather was foggy most of the day. We stopped in Santa Rosa and Bozo’s “Route 66 Car Museum,” which was actually really nice. He had tons of 50’s and 60’s memorabilia and beautifully restored cars, some of which were for sale.

We ate lunch in Tucumcari (as in Linda Ronstadt’s “Willin’ “ – and, yes, we know it’s a Little Feat cover, but Dan loves Linda Ronstadt). Dan downloaded “Heart like a Wheel “ and Glen Campbell’s Greatest Hits (“By the Time I get to Phoenix “) for more place name music. Tucumcari was a sad-looking town, with derelict gas stations and motels. Ironically, a sign on I-40 boasted >20 modern gas stations, among other services. It seems cheaper to build new than to restore.

Our next stop was Cadillac Ranch in Amarillo, TX. It was a line of cars embedded in a field, and people customarily would leave their mark in spray paint. Unfortunately it was raining, and the cars were in a huge puddle. We didn’t have any spray paint anyway.

At our hotel in Elk City, Dan ran on the treadmill, while Rosalind did laundry. I got my exercise running up and down the 2 flights of stairs to check on my machines. There was lots of impressive lightning and tornado warnings on the TV during dinner.

At breakfast, we made a plan to allow us to spend another night at the Plaza Hotel. Our room was already booked, so we had to move to another one. Dan was disappointed that the Michelle Obama room was already taken (it WAS a Saturday night, after all). We walked to a nail salon (following google maps), but it was too sketchy to enter. We stopped at the Santa Fe Trail interpretive center for some local information. The historic downtown Las Vegas has seen better days, but someone was trying to restore the old hotels.

We went back to the hotel, and I booked hotels for the next few nights, according to our new plan. Dan researched high clearance vehicles and roof top tents in preparation for our next adventure. All that googling made him sleepy, so I left him to nap while I took the car and went to a more reputable looking nail salon. Hiking in creeks had left my toenails looking shabby.

In the afternoon, we visited Fort Union, a stop on the Santa Fe Trail, which connected Independence, Missouri with Santa Fe. The trail started as native American paths, was expanded by the Spaniards, and taken over by the US in 1821 when Santa Fe and land south of the Arkansas River were still a part of Mexico. The trail was important during the Mexican-American War (1846-1848), which ended with the US border moving to the Rio Grande River. (Sorry about the history lesson, but they didn’t teach us this stuff in our East Coast high schools.) The advent of the railroads ended the trail’s importance. The fort was surprisingly large, more like a town with huge supply depots, and not fortified as far as I could see.

After the fort, we checked out the Montezuma hot spring, but it was small and full of sketchy looking locals. What snobs we are.

A heavy dew had fallen overnight. Everything was wet, but it dried pretty well in the stiff breeze. After breakfast, we packed the (sort of) dry gear and headed for the Petrified Forest. Of course it wasn’t really a forest, just another desert, but piles of petrified wood were everywhere. We drove through the park, stopping at the visitor center (dinosaur bones and tall “trees”), blue mesa, petroglyphs (not as good as others we’ve seen), a route 66 Studebaker (no sign of any pavement), the painted desert, and an historic Harvey House inn.

We were back on I-40 doing 80 mph for the rest of the day. We entered New Mexico (bumper sticker: “NOT new and NOT Mexico”). There was not much to see, but we are gradually losing elevation and leaving the desert. We had been kind of getting used to the dry heat.

I found a nice campground east of Albuquerque on the “Turquoise Trail.” They had a laundry room, but it was $6.25 per load, so I washed my undies by hand. No fires were allowed, but we each had a free 6 minute shower.

The area had good 4G cell service, so we did some blogging and searching for a place to stay the next night. Santa Fe was completely booked because of the balloon festival (FOMO list!) but I found a room in the Plaza Hotel in Las Vegas, NM, about one hour east. We planned to do Santa Fe with a drive through.

After breakfast and packing, we headed north on route 14, “The Turquoise Trail,” a scenic route to Santa Fe. Our first stop was a 14 mile drive up to Sandia Crest at 10,679 feet. It was cold and very windy at the summit, but there was a stunning overlook of Albuquerque and the surrounding area. We had hoped to see some balloons, but we learned that the balloon fiesta started the next day. There was a large humming radio tower installation that captivated Dan. The second stop was an historic trading post in Golden, an otherwise sleepy spot. We bought a couple of small items. The third stop was at a recommended coffee shop in Madrid. Madrid is a bustling, touristy town with lots of shops. We left as soon as we drank our coffee.

We arrived at our parking garage in Santa Fe, and to our delight it was right under an REI! We stopped in and crossed a few items off our shopping list.

Next we walked to the Georgia O’Keefe Museum. It was a fairly small place, but very nice. We particularly enjoyed the southwest themed paintings. Then we walked to The Plaza, which had lots of very expensive shops and Indian sidewalk vendors selling cheap jewelry. We had a very early dinner at Tomasita’s, a local hangout. They brought us sopaipillas, a fried bread with sweet butter spread, as a side dish. Dan also had posoles, a type of hominy.

After dinner, we drove to the Plaza Hotel in Las Vegas, NM, built in 1882. It turned out to be both beautiful and inexpensive. Some well known movies were filmed there (including a scene from “No Country for Old Men”), and the rooms had photos of the celebrities who had stayed there. Our celebrity was James Woods. We both wanted to stay another night. The next six days were unscheduled, so we had some planning to do. Everyone told us not to miss the balloon fiesta, but we were 2 hours away and it would be hard to get there at 5:00 am in order to get a parking spot. The early start and the fear of crowds kept us away this year, but we put it on our FOMO list for another time. Advance planning seems like a good idea anyway.

After Dan’s run, we went out for breakfast at the Chuckwagon restaurant, owned by Lori from Boston. Brian showed up and we had a nice meal together.

On our way out of town, we had to pass a border patrol check point. They believed our story that we’re US citizens and let us pass. We went to Saguaro (pronounced sa-WAH-ro) National Park East, drove the scenic loop, and did a 1 hour hike through the hot desert. The giant saguaros are very impressive and very old. A big freeze in the 30’s killed lots of them, but they are slowly making a comeback. There are saguaro “nurseries” developing under the sheltering trees. The hike had plaques labeling the different varieties of cactus. We ate lunch at the picnic area, under a sun shelter, thankfully.

We had a long slow drive out of Tucson on a secondary road with lots of traffic lights. This road turned into a long slow scenic road through an Apache reservation. It seemed like a mini Grand Canyon. There was no cell service, gas, or much of anything else. It was getting late, and we realized we wouldn’t reach our destination before dark, so we stopped at Fool’s Hollow Lake State Park in Show Low, AZ. (Apparently someone bet the ranch on a poker game many years ago.) It was a pleasant spot with free showers, which we both enjoyed. It had also cooled off to about 50F, great sleeping weather.

After breakfast while Jean was at work, we caught up on email and blogging. This inn has the best WiFi in the Southwest! (Jean’s a Cornell EE. Wouldn’t expect less.) Dan was a little burnt out from yesterday’s drive, so we decided to see the sights in Tombstone on foot rather than getting back in the car. Our first stop was the OK Corral. We watched an aging animatronic history of Tombstone and the events leading up to the shootout which occurred outside the OK Corral (slightly less tacky than it sounds). Then we saw the live re-enactment of the shootout itself. It was predictably corny (booing the “bad guys”), but fun nevertheless.

We had lunch at Big Nose Kate’s Saloon, window-shopped, and toured the Good Enough silver mine which was completely excavated by hand. Mining was the town’s reason for existence. The admissions clerk gave us the senior citizen’s discount (our first ever!), since we’re both over 55 (maybe they die young out here). Next was a stop at the historic courthouse & museum, where they had a reconstructed gallows and evidence refuting everything we saw at the OK Corral re-enactment. Imagine our surprise.

After dinner with Jean, we talked with her father, John Leskovec, about his experiences in WWII. He claimed to have enlisted at the age of 15, but his memory is unreliable.

We sorted trash, laundry, and gear from our backpacks and repacked the car. We stopped at the general store for ice, yogurt, fruit, and adult beverages.

Today was a travel day, but we had several stops/sights:

1. Williams, AZ is a cute town on route 66. We walked up and down the main street, browsing in several gift shops. Dan was tempted by a faux antique metal Sinclair sign, but it was a bit big for the car. Maybe if it was authentic we would have made room for it.

2. We found a Target in Flagstaff and bought sunscreen. No Targets in the little towns. Rosalind was starting to show withdrawal symptoms.

3. We stopped for lunch at a high altitude scenic overlook, but it was very windy and cool. Afterwards, the road descended with multiple warnings for the trucks. We coasted and got great gas mileage. We were amazed at the sudden appearance of saguaros.

4. We got coffee in Camp Verde, a nice little town with a nearby Navaho casino (the first of many) and the Montezuma Cliffs National Monument (on the FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) list for next time).

5. We wanted to get a hostess gift for our next stop, so we stopped in Eloy, AZ, which had 2 florists according to google. The first was a run-down house in a sketchy neighborhood, and the second was a closed funeral home. We pressed on.

6. We saw a bunch of airplanes in the middle of the desert in Marana. I looked it up and discovered that it was the famous airplane boneyard and you can actually drive through it. (….add to list)

7. We found a Whole Foods in Tucson and bought chocolate as a hostess gift, as all the florists were closed. (Taza chocolate, made in Somerville, MA. Factory tours available. Check it out!)

We arrived in Tombstone at 7:00 pm. My college roommate Jean (whom I haven’t seen in 35 years) owns a small historic motel, the Tombstone Boarding House Inn. She settled us into our room, “The Jail,” and made us dinner. She also introduced us to her dad (age 93) and new husband Brian. I forgot about the chocolate until later.