Here we are in our antique dusters, goggles for Joe and vintage dress and hat for me
along with our car and map of our trip in front of one of the museums in Oklahoma City.  It was so hot that day that the dusters stayed on only long enough for the pictures and then got tossed into the back seat.  I wore the embroidered linen dress all day and the hat except while we were driving.  Then the hat went in the back seat, too.  Too breezy to wear it while driving and too hot to wear a scarf to keep it on. 

We arrived in Texarkana , TX early this afternoon so Joe had time to get some parts to work on the car tomorrow while I head down to Louisiana to visit relatives.  

To you, this probably looks like any old truck.  To me, it means we are back in the South.  I remember seeing "Elsie. the Cow" billboards for Borden milk products when I was maybe 5 or 6 in Baton Rogue, LA.  Elsie looks the same and hasn't aged a bit, wish I could say the same.

I wanted to share with you some of the famous routes we have traveled on our trip. We have been on several portions of Route 66 in California, Arizona and many sections of old Route 66 in Oklahoma.  Other portions of Route 66 are now part of Interstates. One of our tour days on the Glidden Tour covered the longest intact continuous portion of Route 66.  It nearly shook our teeth out!  If you plan to cross the country on old Route 66, use a modern car with good shock absorbers - you'll need it.    

We traveled part of the Santa Fe Trail and the Cimarron Trail, famous trails where cattle were herded to railhead towns to be shipped to market before the turn of the century.  When you are out on the back roads of America in isolated sections of the West in an open car traveling at a slow pace, you can really get a feel for the conditions the cowboys experienced - the isolation, the heat, the dust, the sameness of the landscape for miles.  We didn't have to experience the dangers they did like rattlesnakes, crossing rivers on horseback, sickness and broken bones and attacks by Indians or rustlers, but we did wonder from time to time when we had no cell phone service out in the boonies how long it would take for someone to find us should we experience a breakdown and how long it would take for AAA to rescue us. We kept plenty of water for both the car and ourselves, snacks and lots of oil and a full tank of gas at all times.  You just try to minimize your risks should something unexpected happen.  We have been extremely lucky and have had no major problems with the car, no flat tires and no breakdowns.  

We are now back in a section of the country that may be rural, but towns are closer to each other than in the West and there is a sense of safety in that.  We will be traveling in areas we have traveled before from here back to PA.  There will be some roads we
have never traveled before but the basic areas we are familiar with from other trips. This is good in some ways, but the excitement of always seeing a new vista and being in an area we have never seen will not be there.  Oh well, as long as the wheels keep turning, I'm a happy camper.