Kiss Love Squeeze: Mom and Chrystal Take on America continued

Day 2 of our trip was from Flagstaff, AZ to Tucumcari, New Mexico. One of the things we needed to do was to take a picture of the road side billboard that said "Tucumcari Tonight!" With ads like that I knew I was in for something special.

We got the pups ready and we were on our way. I again thought New Mexico would be very brown and deserty (weird spellcheck says that isn't a word), but it was green - not like Ireland green or Central Coast green - but it looked like it got a healthy dose of rain because we saw lots of green. It was really beautiful against the red rock formations and plateaus. My mom said when we were kids (and they were kids too) they used to drive this route and she had never seen it so green. It was nice to see something with my mom that she had never seen.

Aren't their bows cute - they didn't last long on Brando.

So pretty!

We then saw some caves in the side of plateaus or mountains...whatever you want to call them. The pictures of course doesn't do it justice, but it was really cool.

My mom and I started another book on tape which was another Paul Reizer book, Parenthood which was not as good as Couplehood in my opinion. I forgot to mention on the first day when we were getting close to Flagstaff we were done with the Couplehood book and I asked if my mom wanted to listen to a book I read and loved called "Lets Pretend This Never Happened". The writer is a blogger and is hilarious. She is from Texas and has a crazy family and I thought she would enjoy it. Well...I was wrong. We didn't get too far into the book when mom was like...yeah ok I can't listen to this anymore. I did forget that this lil lady had a sailor mouth and her dad was a taxidermist for fun. Also because we were going through a rain storm as well and my mom can't drive through a rain storm while hearing a girl say the f word and explain how you skin a deer....I know it's weird.

I wanted to drive through Gallup, NM obviously because of the Route 66 song. It was actually pretty cool. They seemed to have put some money into making it worth the drive through or staying over night. I originally wanted to stay in Gallup the first night but my mom thought we would be pushing it with the dogs on our first day and she was right.

We took this picture for my brother in-law Peter because we were sure he would want to stop here and eat.

It was my turn to drive so we stopped to grab a quick bite to eat and we were on the road again. We started to see the clouds get bigger and darker and I for sure did not want to get stuck in a rain storm. We saw this area far away dark cloud that appeared to be dumping a whole lot of rain and I was like crap are we driving toward that or away? My mom said - definitely away - the road is not going that way. In the next minute the road turned and we were driving toward it. Great. So I said "ok mom I'm gonna try and out run it before it gets to the highway. We are the storm runners." So our lil Element blasted down the I-40 and yes...we out ran it. Well...that and it started to break up literally right next to us - so we won both ways! So my mom and were laughing about out running the storm and took a little video for the occasion just to freak out our family - but I know we both wanted to poop when we saw we were going toward it. I at one point asked if my mom was scared that I was driving because she usually likes to be the one driving if it is raining. But she said "No honey I'm fine!" We both possess that high pitch tone of voice that was handed down to us by my grandmother, her mother Teri. That pitch is very distinct...you use it when you are scared, trying to clean up a mess from a child or just plain pissed off and you don't want to talk about. "Me? No...I'm fine honey! We are going to drive through this storm with no problem!" Insert a big smile and maybe even a giggle. Even though I know my mom is probably gripping the door so hard she is leaving finger nail marks. But it is a great quality to have because usually everything is okay in the end anyways and then you can boast to your family and friends that you are like Cool Hand Luke and laugh about it.

We finally get to Tucumcari - sorry I don't have the picture for Tucumcari Tonight! Mom has that one. I will have her send it to me and I will update this post. Because I know everyone is dying to see it. Anyways, we get to the La Quinta in Tucumcari and it definitely was not as nice as the one in Flagstaff, AZ. There was a chaise lounge in the room and it looked like it had been the bed of a thousand dogs for 35 years. It was nasty. I then took the pups out to the designated grass area for them and it stunk so bad of pee that I almost gagged. The mixture of the heat outside and grass that obviously is never watered so there is just stale pee scent is something that I wish no one to ever have to smell. My mom also went to go get dinner and to try and find a market so she can find her foo foo coffee creamer sauce. She came back and said...this place is scary...more like Tucumscary! So that is what we will now call this crazy place.

There were about maybe 5 other families staying at the hotel...maybe. But they all had dogs. So what do the intensely smart people at the Tucumscary La Quinta do? Well put them all right next to each other so all the dogs will bark all night long and everyone can know that you are taking your dogs out every hour because of their explosive diarrhea! I mean why else would you be slamming doors until 4am! Needless to say the dogs and I did not get a lot of sleep - even though we tried. I think it was about 4am when I completely lost and opened my lovely hotel room door and screamed loudly "are you kidding me?!!!" Not one of my finest moments...but I smile fondly at the memory.

I could not wait to get out of this place. I was tired...it smelled...there were too many flies...I was done. I got up early to take the pups out to do their business and found another place that didn't stink so bad. There was a little hospital down the way with a big grass area. I walked them down there and let them run around. After they were done and I turned to head back we all almost stepped on a snake in the grass. Yep...just hanging out waiting to bite someone. Needless to say we all ran so fast back to the room to get the hell out of there and never come back.