day 7: the thunder rolls and the lightning strikes

the parents got ol' Abner rolling early in the morning to make up a little more time. we crossed over the continental divide and headed further east. 

we passed the Thoreau Cafe which has amazing chili but we went by too early in the morning. 

the majority of the morning was just driving. there were only a couple of small old towns and we needed to get to Albuquerque to see if we could get the leak under the RV fixed. 

an old marking on the road

we made it to the KOA/Cruise America office in Albuquerque by about noon but when we asked if anyone could take a look at our leak they told us to call the 800 number on the side of the vehicle. ok we can do that. so we called and they said they would call us back. so we waited and waited some more. it was lovely warm weather outside so we snagged a picnic table started playing games. mom played BS with us and didn't realize we could see her cards in her sunglasses :) dad tried calling again about an hour later and still nothing. all the while our Abner was leaking lovely blue water all over their parking lot. finally after about 2 hours of playing games and 0 help we figured we'd just hit the road leaving a large puddle in their parking lot. within 10 minutes of being on the road we got a phone call back! {it felt a little like that Seinfeld episode where they wait for a table in the Chinese restaurant for the whole episode and then right after they leave the waiter yells "Seinfeld 4!} they couldn't help us til monday anyway so we figure oh well. we got a couple hours of sunshine. 

 

we continued on I-40 just catching glimpses of the old road every once in a while until we came to Cline's Corner. in the middle of nowhere and on the road to everywhere. it was an old trading post that had everything! it still is a bustling center of activity. 

on the way to tucumcari there was a cool old car museum with about 30 cars. so we stopped and checked it out for a while. there were some pretty sweet cars!

mom's future fix-it-up

we finally made our way to Tucumcari where we knew we would stop for the night. this city is known for still having lots of neon lights but we were too early for most of them to be lit up.

we passed the two most popular stops from back in the days {above photos}and figured we would stop at Del's Restaurant for dinner. Man that was good food! 

we left after a filling meal and it had started raining! dad had seen lightning in the distance a couple hours before and that storm had moved on top of us. there were strong winds and tons of lightning! {my fav!} we stood outside and just watched after getting hooked up until the lightning was striking what seemed to be nearby and over our heads. so we bundled inside just before the rain started to fall really heavy! the game room in this KOA was open 24 hours so we all piled in there. while mom put in the  laundry we played games and just relaxed.