Your Royall Blogness: June 25 - Tucumcari, New Mexico

Jess awoke as soon as our alarm went off at 4:30 in the morning. He was like a kid at Christmas time, and he could not wait to get the car loaded and get on the road. I decided I could use a few more Zzzz's, and got up around 5. All weekend we had been walking around all of our camping gear that was crammed into our living room because we were so excited to start packing. We did not want to load up the car until we left because we did not want to take the risk of our car getting robbed the night before our trip. That would be sad. (It has happened before...ahhhh Venice)

We feel like we gave ourselves almost too much time for last minute preparations. We were just ready to get on the road. Leon knew something big was happening. Whenever he sees our suitcases laid out, he knows somebody is leaving. Little did he know he was going to be a part of the big adventure! So, with Jess loading up the car with his Tetris skills and me making sure the house was clean and ready for Ryan to shack up for a month, we were on the road by 6:30 am!

"Ryan to shack up for a month"? ...you might be asking yourself. Let me take this moment to make a shout out to our lovely friend Ryan who will be house sitting for us the next 5 weeks. He is awesome. Thanks Ryan.

We have a tradition to hit up the Carl's Jr. in Santa Monica for some Hardee's breakfast before our road trips. We filled up on some bacon egg and cheeses before hitting the 10 without running into any traffic. We made it to Victorville (where sonic is!) by 9:00, so we just drove on by without stopping for our usual lunch. Yes, you read that correctly. We made it all the way to Flagstaff, AZ before stopping at...Sonic for lunch.

After lunch we drove up onto a huge, Arizona style rainstorm. We enjoyed a lightning show for about an hour before we even drove through any rain. It was pure entertainment. We decided to pull over and unstrap Jess's skateboard from the top of the car before we hit the rain. The rain was hard but brief. The box on top of our car held up pretty well in the rain. To pass more time we played several rounds of Sporkle trivia on my iPhone. It is an app, and you definitely need to try it. So fun!

We thought we would make it to Tucumcari for dinner, but we only got as far as Albequerque before our stomachs started aching. This was a happy accident because we stumbled upon some of the best Indian Tacos at the Pueblo Indian Cultural Center. Definitely a new tradition! We ordered one and split it because it was so huge. I also ordered fry bread with honey for dessert.

We had about 2 more hours before getting to the Route 66 Historic Motel in Tucumcari for the evening. We stayed here last Christmas, and we were happy to be back. It is a real mom and pop type Motel with a cool coffee shop. They treat you like family and are very welcoming of dogs. When I spoke to the man on the phone he said, "Well, if you are not going to be in before midnight, just make sure to give me a call so I can leave the door unlocked for you." We are not in Los Angeles anymore.

We made it to the motel around 10:30 pm and hit the hay. 16 hours on the road for Day 1! This was our plan. We wanted to get to Oklahoma as quick as possible. We will take 16 hours on the road together any day.