Kelly's Ramblings

Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Wednesday September 21 Pics

Mini golf

Rexall Drugs

Route 66 Inn

Art Deco building from the '30's

Texan Route 66 Motel

Leaning water tower outside Groom, TX

8:00am - We slept in a little bit today so that we wouldn't run into rush hour traffic making our way through OKC, OK beginning our day. We made our way across the city to begin our tour of Route 66. Our plan was to follow it, checking out the small cities along the way and reliving the nostalgia. We stopped at McD's for breakfast, unfortunately we are now out of the land of bagels and back into McGriddleland. We started along the map, but it soon became clear that a lot (much more than I expected) of old Route 66 is gone and now what is considered "Route 66" is the access road that runs parallel to I40. We did go through some old towns, and see some old signs, but both of us are pretty disappointed. At this point, we can say, if you've driven I40, you've driven Route 66. At least between Amarillo, TX and OKC, OK. We were expecting the road to be still be intact in a lot of places and be miles off the freeway, but that simply is not the case. While I got a few good pictures, my nostalgia for The Mother Road is fading. Especially if it continues like this tomorrow. Frustrated, we called it a day in Amarillo, TX.

Weather - Cloudy in OK
Sun in TX

Tuesday, September 20, 2011

Tuesday September 20 Pics

Flamingos

3 finned sea turtle

Penguin

Manatee

Bird

Otters (lower right corner)

Tuesday September 20

8:00am - Today we decided to sleep in a little since we had gotten up so early yesterday. We were pretty close to what we were going to do, so we were not in a big hurry. It was a sad morning, after turning away from the coast yesterday, we were officially back land-side. It will be another year before I see ocean again. Off to breakfast at McD's and then to our destination for the day, Dallas World Aquarium. We took the trolley and were going to walk until we got there and realized it was about six or more blocks off the trolley line. Car, please. lol So we thought about stopping at the Dallas Federal Reserve Bank on the way back to the car. C looked it up on his iphone and, well, no, we couldn't do that either. Tours have to be arranged in advance, but tours are suspended right now because of remodeling. Oh, well. Another time. At least we know and we can look at making a reservation for a tour next time. So we got to the car and drove down to the Aquarium and parked. The aquarium was pretty big and very well organized. They have manatees there! You don't see those very often. We spent a couple hours there, which was a long time for us, but we enjoyed it and had a good time. We even had lunch. We headed out on the road to where we planned to stay for the night, Norman, OK. Just outside OKC. We saw two places that we put on the list for next time as they looked interesting, they were exotic animal parks. I like those. We got to the hotel at a decent time and got pizza from a local place and just watched some TV. Tomorrow we start our Route 66 tour!

Weather - Sun

Monday, September 19, 2011

Monday September 19 Pics

TX sunset

Red Jacket Firearms - "Sons of Guns"

VexCon - "Billy the Exterminator"

Monday September 19

6:00am - Our day dawned bright and early and with promise. .....Until we opened the door and walked outside. And saw that it was just downpouring. We still headed out to our first destination, picking up breakfast at McD's along the way. We had to drive through rush hour traffic, which is why we had to leave so early. We got to the other side of town about 45 minutes early, and it was still coming down. We wanted to do a swamp tour, but it was an open air boat. Not something you want to be on when it's raining and you have no jacket and an expensive camera. So we bagged it. We also bagged everything else we were going to do in New Orleans because it was all outside stuff - walking around the French Quarter and a riverboat cruise. We had checked out the weather forecast on C's iphone while we were deciding what to do and saw that rain was in the forecast for the entire day, so we pulled up stakes and headed out. We didn't have anything else planned so we just did some touristy siteseeing. We located Red Jacket Firearms ("Sons of Guns") outside Baton Rouge and VexCon ("Billy the Exterminator") outside Shreveport. We then headed towards Dallas, TX and called it a day about an hour east of Dallas. Nothing exciting today, it was a pretty boring day.

Weather - Rain (southern LA)
Sun (nothern LA, TX)