Monday, May 10, 2010 – Drive to Dalhart, TX

Well, Oklahoma certainly lived up to it’s windy reputation today! We had wind and spotty rain all night, and the air was full of moisture in the morning, almost like a fog. After packing up, we headed into 50-60 mile per hour headwinds and crosswinds. NOT a pleasant drive! Our gas mileage went way down, and we finally had to take a break in Pampa, TX for a meal, just to get some circulation back in my knuckles! We found a great little restaurant next to Wal-mart called the Dixie Cafe. Hubby had a catfish dinner (with SIX fillets!) and I had sizzling fajitas. The chips were the lightest, crunchiest chips we’d had in a long time, and the salsa was fresh and chunky, not like those marina sauces so many Mexican restaurants try to pass off as salsa. Anyway, needless to say we had tons of leftovers. At one point, I had to go back out to the van, and it was like being in a hurricane! I had to turn my back to the wind a few times, and the wind literally stopped my forward progress on several occasions. I looked like on of those crazy weather guys standing out in a hurricane, getting buffeted around like a puppet on a string. I was not looking forward to getting back on the road with my high profile vehicle, but fortunately, by the time we finished lunch it had dropped down a few mph at least. After getting gas a groceries at Wal-mart, we headed cross country again for the XIT Rangers Club in Dalhart, arriving about 6:00. We were met by manager Peggy, who happily helped us get the horses settled in a good-sized pipe corral, and the RV parked up alongside the arena. The wind had died down some, but it was still blowing pretty good for a while. It was such a shame that the one day when we would be driving on pretty flat terrain (thus should have gotten better gas mileage), we ended up bucking such a wind. Pretty scary! We made it intact, though, and that’s the important thing!