Day #2: A Series of Fortuitous Events!

So, I was all proud of myself for getting a 5:45 a.m. wakeup call, in order to leave Tucumcari, NM by 7:30 and make a minor detour on the way to Tulsa to have a quick lunch with a friend before he had to go to work.

My self-back-patting did not last long, though, as I realized about 40 miles later while crossing into Texas that I had just entered the "Central Time Zone"... traveling one hour into THE FUTURE and completely screwing my finely-tuned travel plan.

:banghead:

Once I realized my error, I decided to stop in Amarillo, TX for breakfast since I hadn't eaten at the hotel, being all excited to get on the road.  Upon spying the first Waffle House of my journey, I pulled off the highway, took a pic, posted it to Facebook and wandered inside; however, it was super crowded (waffle-loving Valentine's Day breakfasters? The usual crowd?) so I decided to head a few miles down to the Crack Barrel (yes, again. I'm going easy on the biscuits and cheesy hash browns so that I don't end up rolling home like a barrel).

Shortly after being seated and ordering my food, my cell phone pinged indicating that someone had responded to my post and lo and behold, my friends Diana and Michelle from Colorado Springs just HAPPENED TO have stayed overnight in Amarillo and were just a few miles away.

SERENDIPITY!

Long story short, through no planning whatsoever I got to spend an hour-ish hanging out with some great people I haven't seen in about four years, that I was planning to try and visit anyway at some point, and they just dropped right into my lap because I didn't think about time zones and my tummy was growling and I decided to post where I was online.  Dog bless you, internets. :)

After this all-too-brief but pleasant interlude (except for the part where I left my phone at the Crack Barrel and had to turn around and get it, that was kind of a pain but only cost me 15 minutes) I made awesome time all the way to the Tulsa, OK, where I was greeted by Warren and had a great dinner with he and his daughter and daughter's friend.  After that he drove us downtown and we looked around a bit - there's some pretty nifty art-deco era type architecture - and hung out for a little bit at a local watering hole.

Now back at Casa La Beason, I wasn't sure if I would have enough energy to write all this down tonight, but I don't want to get behind.  I've been carrying a stash of index cards and a buttload of pens handy in the car to write down observations each day to put in this blog, and while the index card I have from today has a lot of cryptic scribblings, I'm too bushed now to elaborate on them so it will have to wait for another time. But I'll keep the index card handy and hope that I can remember what on earth I meant by "metal roof" and "no cops".

Hasta Manana!