Albuquerque to Clarendon

It was windy the first time I took the dogs out last night. I took them out again at 2:30 in spite of saying I would not take them out in the middle of the night. It was dead calm and warm. While walking, the dogs found droppings (probably rabbit) and ate them like candy. I was not able to spot the goodies faster than them. I have dog dogs. There are high class dogs, uppity dogs, etc. but my dogs like to wallow in the dirt, get stinky, eat crap, etc. Then, I woke up to another weather alert. It was a high wind warning. I took the dogs out and nearly froze even though the temperature was not that cold. It was very windy.

By the way, I learned if you do not want a wet dog nose waking you up, sleep in the middle of a queen or king bed. The nose cannot reach you.

I took the dogs back to the North Dominga Baca Dog Park first thing and no one was there. It was very windy but the dogs were hyped and ignored it until they were pretty worn out. After that, we headed east and hoped we could get away from the wind.

We stopped in Tucumcari at a Love’s Travel Center for a dog park romp. I planned to stay a half hour, but after 20 minutes we were getting too much dirt in our eyes and I loaded the dogs up to move on. I was still hopeful to get away from the wind. The wind increased and stuff started blowing across the highway. At one point, about 8 tumbleweeds blew across and my first thought was that it was a pack of animals and it scared me. Just tumbleweeds. We were not impacted much by the wind while driving but it was clear that the trucks were having issues staying in their lane.

The temperature was in the high 50’s to low 60’s. In the car we were toasty and I turned on the air conditioner for the dogs. Outside was a different story. I found myself wearing a sweater and my winter coat to remain warm enough outside with the wind.

On the way to Amarillo, we saw miles of wind turbines and they were spinning. We have often seen wind turbines on our trips during the summer and they seem to be lazily turning or stopped. Almost all the turbines I saw west of Amarillo were working it.

At one point, both dogs were laying down in the back. That’s unusual because Raven is usually sitting up looking out the back window. We passed a large feedlot packed with cows. I looked in the rearview mirror and saw two dogs sitting upright staring out the back window. I have never seen the two of them do this before. When Clover turned her head to the side as she panned, her nostrils were going full speed.

We stopped in Amarillo at a Love’s dog park and it was still crazy windy. My precious little Clover found something to eat and I made her drop it and it was a cigarette butt. This girl loves cigarette butts. At one hotel, we entered through the side entrance and there was a bucket outside the entrance where folks smoking would drop their butts. It was always a hassle to get through that door with Clover because she wanted those butts. She is nuts. At the Bremerton Dog Park, my favorite people we help me scoop up the butts in the park before she got to them.

We arrived at a beautiful Best Western in Clarendon, Texas. This is my favorite place so far. I usually put the dogs water bowl down first when we arrive in a hotel but returned to the car for a few items. When I got back to the room, I heard Raven drinking out of the toilet. Not long after, Clover had a white thing in her mouth she was playing with. It was the cover for the screw on the toilet. Sometimes I feel like I am playing a game of whack-a-mole trying to keep up with the two of them.

Because I have had a lot of trouble with my phone and the Jeep GPS is terrible, Regis told me he thought there was another GPS in the glove compartment. I told him I could not open the glove compartment. He was puzzled how it broke. I said “no, no, no..I would have to empty the car to get to the glove compartment.” I sent him this picture. Whenever the glove compartment is accessible, I cannot seem to remember to get the GPS.