The Woman of TomTom

The day before we left on our road trip -- from rural Missouri to the bustling metropolis of Los Angeles --  I received an e-mail notice that the writer of a favorite blog, The Reluctant Memsahib, was embarking with her husband on their own road trip.

I think perhaps she has the potential to see much more exciting things than we saw on the first leg of our trip. So far, the only really interesting thing we have seen from the windows of the car as we motored at a sedate 65 mph down I-40 (which follows the old Route 66) was a small herd of pronghorn antelope grazing in a field in northern New Mexico.

This trip requires a few days' stay in Lost Wages so Richard can attend a convention. We arrived here this morning in a rather more leisurely fashion than we have done in previous trips. We decided to take an extra traveling day -- our grief counselor urged us to do this when she spotted us early last week on our morning walk as she pulled off the highway at the Willow Springs exit just as we were crossing the overpass. 

"You two are exhausted," she said. "You just don't know it. Take your time."

 I could relate to Memsahib's post of today, where she describes them being stopped by a policeman and being fined for speeding and other infractions. I remember quite vividly about 7 years ago when Richard was driving and blew right past the sign that said

Construction Zone

Reduced Speed

Fines Doubled in Construction Area

and there was a Arizona highway patrol car sitting there to see us do it, and she stopped us. We spent a hour or so in Winslow, Arizona, and I actually got to "stand on a corner in Winslow, Arizona" while he was paying the $220 fine. We were somewhat poorer and much wiser after that episode.

A new companion with us on this trip has been our handy TomTom device with the pleasant female voice advising us how to get where we want to go. We don't actually need her while we are on the road, but she was very helpful today directing us from the Interstate to our motel, and from there to the location of the pawn shop that is featured on the "Pawn Stars" program. As we drove by the pawnshop and saw the line of people standing outside in the hot sun waiting to get in, I concluded that I did not really want to stand in line for the chance to see the interior of the shop, and so we drove on by and made a couple of right hand turns and then headed back to the motel.

We are somewhat nostalgic for the "old Las Vegas" that we remember from the 1970s. The "new and improved" Las Vegas is overwhelming. In the old days, one could walk down the strip and enjoy the lights and the sights -- now everything has gotten so huge and so grand that it is no longer very walkable -- the casinos are simply too far apart.

But except for a stroll last night and early this morning down the quaint streets of Williams, Arizona, we have mostly been sitting on our behinds since Saturday morning and so we will put our shoes on, head on out for some Indian food, and perhaps walk as far as the fountains at the Bellagio...