Amarillo to Farmington

My heart sank when I saw how long today's drive was. I really try to avoid giving myself seven hour drives, but for whatever reason, when I was in the planning stage, I thought it was important to get all the way to Farmington, NM from Amarillo today. 
In retrospect, it makes no sense. I could have taken this trip in two drives because I don't teach again until Monday. I thought about that every time I passed a Motel 6 on this epic day of driving. But I kept going and made it all the way through. 

I gained an hour today, going from Central to Mountain time, so I adjusted the clock first thing. And then I got in a solid three hours of driving before making our first stop. I had some sandwiches already made, so stopping to eat was so easy. I don't know why I hadn't thought of doing this before; eating in the middle of a drive day used to be such a cumbersome ordeal, but now it's as simple as reaching into the cooler and pulling out a baggie. 

 River lounged in the sun while I ate and then we got back in the car for more driving. 

 Babe reached a couple of milestones along the way. 

 About seven miles before we crossed the Texas-New Mexico state line the odometer rolled over to 70,000. and then a bit later, about half an hour from Farmington, the trip odometer rolled over to 8000 miles. 

 Having only tonights meal in the cooler, I knew I would need some food for River in the morning, so I navigated to the Petco in Farmington, rather than directly to the motel. And I happened to notice that the Natural Grocer was just around the corner, so I also made a quick stop there.

River was agitated and loudly barking and howling while I went into Petco, but he was quiet while I was in Natural Grocer. Usually I take him with me into Petco, so I assume he recognized the smell and was upset that I didn't bring him with me, but he's used to waiting in the car while I'm in the grocery store. I'm glad I didn't bring him, though, because the store was filled with other big dogs and it would have been a scene. I don't know why I chose to leave him behind, but it's one of those moments when I followed my gut instinct and it turned out to be exactly the right thing to do. 

 Loaded up with food, we got to the motel room and we ate, washed, walked, peed, pooped, watched TV and went to bed. I had dug into a bag of corn chips and avocado hummus dip that I got at the store and I didn't stop when I had reached enough. I kept on eating. I blame the unsavory act of eating while watching TV on my ability to ignore my body's signals of satiety. The next morning, I paid for my gluttony with a full, bloated feeling. The chips were really good and the dip was incredible, too, but I would have been just as (or even more) satisfied by eating only half of what I did. 

 Along the way from Amarillo, I crossed over the Continental Divide at about 7300 feet elevation. Now, in Farmington, we're about 7000 feet. I don't feel any effects from the thin air yet, but I do know that we are in the high desert because it got cold enough last night that I actually needed to put on a shirt! 

 I also inspected the trouble spot in my knee pit and am delighted to see it continuing to heal. I now think it was probably just a bug bite  and not any sort of cancer or irritated rash from my awesome pants. I will keep an eye on it, but I'm greatly relieved by what I've seen so far. And I'm especially happy that I don't have to stop wearing my shiny pants. 

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