Advertisement
Published: September 27th 2008
Thrifty Travel Tip #4: Don't pay to take a toll road. It's bullsh*t to pay for an interstate when you can use a road that follows alongside it for free, minus the trucks and heavy traffic, and, with a prettier view of the countryside. It'll also save you about $10-20, depending where you are.
Buenos Dias and Good Morning from New Mexico.
We woke up early this morning (me before Dustin at 7:30 AM, him by 9 AM,) and had the pleasure of taking hot showers in Ree's beautiful guest house. Dustin went out to the car to get towels and some fresh clothes; when he came back in I told him I was going out to get a few things. He informed me that the gate was stuck and he had to squeeze through this tiny crack in the thing. I went outside and found that I had the same problem and squeezed through the same crack,which was almost to small for me, so I have no idea how Dustin managed to pull it off. I left the keys on the other side so I sucked in and slid back. Something seemed off to me - I remembered Ree opened the gate no problem the day before - and I took one more stab at getting it open. I couldn't figure out what it was caught on and then I looked up and saw the hinges. With one solid pull I opened the huge door; we had been pushing on the d*mn thing the whole time... just thought that little tale would give you an idea about the kind of brain power you're dealing with on this trip. After we finished our rejuvenating shower, we both thought Ree would still be sleeping so we left a note and took off. She called about 5 minutes after we left and we drove back, graciously thanked our host, and rolled out of St. Louis.
Realizing that we weren't making the best time on the trip, we decided that this day we would cover a lot of ground. We drove out of St Louis with the intention of at least making it to Tulsa, if not Oklahoma City. After driving West on 40 for a few hours, signs started to pop up advertising a Russell Stover outlet. I was very excited by this as I can not pass up a good, thrifty deal, especially if it enjoys Chocolate, one of god's greatest gift to the world. 20 miles later, we were pulling off the highway and walking through the doors of a cheese and chocolate outlet in the middle of the desert of Oklahoma. "It's really hot here!" I exclaimed to Dustin in my cheery, eager voice, and then bolted into the huge place. As we walked around sampling chocolate we saw a couple good deals. There were goofed up chocolates that were $10 for 3 pounds and various other buy 3s, 4s, and 5s at the price of one. When I rounded the corner I saw a sign that stated "Summer Blowout! 8 Boxes for $8.99" They were 1 1/2 lbs. boxes of Whitman's Samplers. This, as we all know, is absolutely unnecessary and ridiculous. No one needs that much chocolate, especially if they're driving across the country. I almost left about 20 times, each time stating the ridiculousness of the situation... yet somehow I ended up walking out of there with eight 1 1/2 lbs. boxes of chocolate for $8.99. When we got to the car, I cried "OH SH*T" Dustin asked what was wrong, whereupon I replied "We're going to drive across the desert with 8 f**king boxes of chocolate. Who the F**k DOES that???" I realized we just made the trip a whole lot more of a challenge.
We got back in the car, on a mission to get to Tulsa. As we neared Oklahoma, we saw signs warning that tolls would start when we entered the state. The entire trip I was pestering Dustin about rte 66 and we both finally agreed that this was the perfect time to start taking it. As we veered off 40W and on to the old road, a sense of resolve settled into me and I felt a little bit of a mixture of satisfaction and peace. We headed into the country side on the two lane highway, over hills and through small towns. Rte 66 was exactly what I needed; a refreshing change from the interstate without trucks or even other cars. We flew down the old road and arrived in Tulsa around 530ish. We saw Tally's, an old diner that Dustin spotted, and for some reason seemed familiar to me. We wanted to check out the city's restaurant selection so we passed it by and drove into downtown. Although we had a map in our atlas, we could not, for the life of us, navigate that city. We drove around and around, trying to find the historic area and the shopping center, or at least the mall. Somehow an hour later we still had no dinner and we were on the west end of the city, heading out. We stopped in a cute place with a train in front that boasted great local food and that was on Route 66.
As we were getting ready to get out of the car, I noticed I missed a call from my brother. I read the text he followed it with: "Stop at Tally's when you get to Tulsa!" I knew right away what Tally's was. When, I visited my brother during his graduation, we ate at the place years before. He even had a t-shirt from the old diner and now I was kicking myself for not stopping. Knowing it was on the other side of town, Dustin and I stuck around the train station and decided to give a new place a try. 1 shitty salad bar, no waters, a crappy menu, and 10 minutes later we were back on the ride, driving towards Tally's. When we passed through the city before, we noticed a small area with a few restaurants and returned to the trendy little spot. By the time we found a city guide, Dustin was too hungry to go looking, so we ate at a Mexican place called Mexicali. It seemed appropriate since that's where we were headed, and the food wasn't half bad. if I could do it over, I'd have stopped at Tally's on the way in, but Mexicali was just fine, as long as you overlook the fact that we ate way too many chips and salsa.
With our tummy's full, we both felt that we had enough energy to forge ahead to Oklahoma City. I headed out on Rte. 66 and about 20 minutes later, I was too tired to drive (not bad considering I was up at 7:30 and it was already 10:00.) I fell asleep when Dustin took the wheel and when I woke up, bright neon lights were shining through the glass, into my face. I realized we were in a gas station and the lights I saw were a giant pop bottle made up of light rings. We looked into the store and saw what looked like tons of bottles lining the glass windows in all different colors. We entered the store which was filled with a group of freshman from a local christian college, only adding the the eccentric feel of the place. We found out the store was named "Pops" and they carried thousands of sodas, all in glass bottles. We picked up a seltzer and a natural, diet ginger ale (which was actually, really good,) took a few photos, and hit rte 66 till we made it to Oklahoma City. Pops was definitely worth stopping at, for all you future visitors to LA : )
In Oklahoma City, we hadn't found a place to stay and decided we could both tolerate a night of sleeping in the car. This wasn't as easy as you would think since we couldn't recline our seats, had only 1 pillow, and didn't have a blanket in the car. We stopped in the parking lot of a Holiday Inn Express which was well lit and seemed safe. Curling into awkward positions, we settled into our car and somehow managed to fall asleep peacefully, snug and warm in the Malibu, securely surrounded by eight boxes of Russell Stover's chocolate. Thank god it's not hot at night in the desert.
Love you all, give us a call or text if you feel so inclined!
L+D
Don't forget to catch Tomorrow's Entry, "Day 4: Burrs, Boulders, and B*tching... Oh, my."
Advertisement
Tot: 0.061s; Tpl: 0.01s; cc: 13; qc: 49; dbt: 0.0313s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Ryan Puliafico
non-member comment
Hello from the Midwest
Sounds like a interesting trip. I hope the rest of the adventure is just as exciting. Good luck to the both of you!