day five: morning in osage hills and evening in tucumcari, new mexico

 packed up and ready to hit the road . . 

 first things first . . of course . . 

 a last pic of the pretty campsite . . 

 and of a wildflower . . 

and of the ranger office with its carved wooden bear. we arrived around 6 pm when the office was closed and we left at 7 am when it was still closed . . 

 we turned left from the state park onto highway 60 going west to pawhuska.

 all of these next photos are of the beautiful osage reservation of the cherokee nation.

 there were numerous signs along this road that read: "hitch hikers could be escaped convicts . . " !!

 at pawhuska we turned left onto highway 99 going south (we passed the tallgrass prairie preserve which would have been beautiful to see. you can read about it here and here).

 after cleveland, ok, we took two more smaller highways to interstate 44 which took us into oklahoma city.

 here we are at whole foods in oklahoma city . . 

where we had lunch and met the friendliest oklahoman who happened to be from connecticut!

we began to pass some very large farms after oklahoma city . . 

 and cattle and horse ranches . . 

 and then the wind turbines began . . 

hundreds of them south, west and north . . 

 it got very flat . . 

and we passed from oklahoma into texas . . 

 huge silos . . factory farms? gmo corn?

 finally . . new mexico! (after passing exit zero on interstate 40, leaving texas, which we all found amusing.)

doing laundry at the best western motel in tucumcari, new mexico. our room was right across the way, making it all very convenient.

so, yes, we stopped for the night at a best western in tucumcari. we changed our plans and didn't go up to clayton state park. from reviews we read it seemed a bit deserted and neglected, and we also didn't want to add any more miles to our next day's trip (to canyon de chelly). actually, we wanted to decrease the milage.

and the pool at the best western was very inviting. chanda was not happy about this change of plans, unfortunately, but finally joined greg and i in the pool. it was the nicest swim and felt so refreshing and relaxing. it made me very nostalgic and i regaled greg with cross country motel stories starring my mom, dad and sister. plus, i'm sure i've been in tucumcari before with my family when i was little. what nomads we were in the 60's and 70's! i also consider this the time when they "homeschooled" me, since they were always leaving on these trips before school ended and taking me out early. well, maybe that happened only once, but it made a huge impression on me! and i certainly learned a lot on those cross country trips . . 

after the swim and a shower, greg and i had dinner at the bb steakhouse that was within walking distance just on the other side of the motel. it was really good (yes, i was surprised!) and had a fantastic salad bar. i ordered the shrimp fajitas and it made me so happy when it came sizzling on its hot iron skillet to the table. i also had a baked potato . . we were both rather hungry. chanda happily ate the leftovers we brought back to the motel room.