Great American Road Trip, Day 3: Oklahoma, Texas & New Mexico

Day 3: Today's lessons included: safely walking around towns, safety at gas stations, and being aware of our surroundings while driving. There was about an hour of our drive at night when I had concerns we were being followed by a truck with some erratic driving behaviors. We were moments from calling 911 before I figured out how to safely get out of his path. This might have been the day that I second guessed that whole girls' only trip idea. We also learned to not run low on gas. That lead to seeing one of the coolest gas stations ever!

We woke up in Tulsa, Oklahoma with plans of heading straight to Oklahoma City. When my daughter planned our roadside stop in Oklahoma, I was pleasantly surprised that the top of her list was the Oklahoma City Memorial. This wasn't anything we had discussed and I knew it wasn't anything she had discussed in school. Proud mom moment meant that this was something she had read about and connected with how important this memorial is.

As we were checking out of the hotel, I thought I would ask the desk clerk if there was anything we should see before heading out of town. She recommended The Gathering Place, siting it as one of the top tourist attractions in America. It's a gigantic outdoor park with tons to do. If my daughter had been a few years younger or even a few years older (recapturing her elementary years as many high schoolers do), she would have loved it. Unfortunately, in middle school, this just isn't what piqued her interest. I had to take a few pictures though for anyone reading this with kids of the right age or anyone wanting to recapture their youth. It definitely seemed like a great place to spend a day.

Along the way, I learned one of the best places for souvenir shopping was the many Indian trading posts along I40. They have a great selection of little trinkets and for the most part, reasonable prices. Most have billboards as you're getting close or you can do an internet search ahead of time to strategically plan your stops.

We made it to the Oklahoma City Memorial just in time for lunch. I have vague memories of the bombing in 1995, but honestly couldn't remember the details. Reading about it and explaining it to my twelve year old daughter put a different set of emotions behind the reality.

This was also when my daughter saw more homeless people than she was comfortable with and clung to me just a little tighter. We had the discussion before leaving and along the drive regarding safety. As two females traveling alone during some civil unrest in our country, I had to explain the importance of not being vulnerable or doing anything to call attention to ourselves. I also explained that we were traveling with mace and it went absolutely everywhere with us. She seemed fine with the topic, up until a homeless man popped out of an ally when we were walking and tried to approach us rather aggressively. We were just around the corner from the lunch spot as she reached to hold onto my arm and I explained that we needed to quickly get inside the cafe and maybe hang out there for a few extra minutes.

Grateful again to have packed food as there was still no breakfast offered. We had high hopes of being in a big city with several places listed for being gluten free friendly. What I failed to plan for is those cafes being closed on a Saturday because they were inside of big office buildings, the crowd to whom they cater. We decided to check out a place known for their GF muffins, Elemental Coffee. Yet again, I did't realize that they apparently sell out of them early on Saturday. The picking were slim, so we settled for a wonder bar. It was a granola type bar with superfoods and coated in dark chocolate. I wish I could tell you how amazing it was, but it reminded me of a glorified granola bar. If you plan on checking it out, I suggest planning to go early and trying their muffins for which they are known.

My daughter absolutely fell in love with Texas. We had discussed how there were many points to this trip. One of the biggest was for her to see how diverse and awesome our country is. I want her to dream outside of the Carolinas and be able to experience life as she grows up.

Cadillac Ranch was the attraction she was most excited about before we left for the trip. Our impression from looking it up online was there were cars sticking out of the ground that were tie dyed. How do they tie dye cars I wondered. Yes, this shows how much trust I actually put in my twelve year old to plan the attractions along the way. It turns out the colorful Cadillacs are that way as a result of encouraging visitors to leave their own mark with spray paint, which leaves the site ever changing. We didn't know this fact until we walked up and saw spray painted art on the path leading up to the cars and many people with their own cans of spray paint. Fortunately, there is kindness in other parents as a dad there with his family approached us with a few spare cans of spray paint he had picked up and offered them to us so we too could leave our marks. And that, we did. This was so fun! You'll also see it was quite windy for a few days on the trip.

Dinner was tacos because hey, if we're going to be in Texas, we gotta eat Tex Mex, right? Torchy's Tacos hit the spot and we loved the cute theme. (I still wasn't ready to get my daughter a shirt with the word damn on it, no matter how cute. Call me old fashioned. I ordered the Baja Shrimp tacos and she ordered the beef tacos. We didn't see hers listed on the limited menu, but they were happy to accommodate. I love when there is awesome customer service! We both enjoyed our dinners. I was thrilled to be able to eat safely fried shrimp as it's such a rarity these days. Since they have locations in many states, go check them out.

We were about to head towards New Mexico when my daughter brought up that she still needed her sticker from Texas. This was her chosen souvenir for the trip, inexpensive, small, and we thought something that would be easy to find. It turns out this wasn't the case in some places. We checked grocery stores, drug stores, and travel gas stations along the way. Sometimes, you just have to look for a souvenir shop nearby. This was when we happened upon The Big Texan, a super cool souvenir shop and restaurant in Amarillo. You know how they say everything is bigger in Texas? This place definitely wants to ensure you leave with that impression. We could have spend so much longer in here, but had a hotel reservation we needed to get to. We made sure to grab some yummy gelato on our way out though.

As we drove through the open fields of Texas heading to New Mexico, I was so entranced by the weird clouds with the windmills that I had to pull over to take this picture.

Welcome to New Mexico. OMG, please tell me there's a gas station around her somewhere. Yep, that was the lesson learned as my cell signal was getting a little sketchy, my gas tank was low and I was trying not to panic. My gas gauge read less than 20 miles to go and we hadn't seen a sign for a gas station for miles. Did I mention it was also starting to get dark? Yeah, cue the moment that I started questioning just how big of a bite I thought I should take. When I searched for gas stations along the route, Waze informed us there were several about a hundred miles away. Gulp, that is so not going to work. I learned there's another way to do a search. Remove the destination and just search for gas stations (praying it didn't route us backwards). This is how we stumbled across the coolest gas station in America that I have ever seen. Russell's Travel Center has a free car and collectible museum inside. They also have a diner, tons of souvenirs, and apparently a chapel. As someone blogging about our gluten free travels though, I was absolutely thrilled when I learned they have a whole gluten free section in their food area. I have never seen this at a gas station and think I fell in love with all things out west all over again.

As we logged the miles for today of 704, my heart smiles on this beautiful sunset to end the day.